


Itsy-Bitsy Eclipse of the Heart

by MarInk



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Harry knows how to hold a grudge, M/M, Peter is a nerd and it's hot, not very much graphic violence but just to be on the safe side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-01 04:17:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4005595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarInk/pseuds/MarInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An idea of what 'The Amazing Spider-Man 3' could look like; with a thick layer of Parksborn plastered all over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

What with taking care of Aunt May, and working for the Daily Bugle, and crime-fighting, and everything else, Peter Parker shouldn’t have much time to think. Unfortunately, he does.

Don’t get him wrong: thinking is good as a concept. It’s a useful, healthy thing to do, like exercising in the morning and brushing your teeth twice a day. It’s what he usually thinks about that makes him want to quit it altogether. 

Of course, he thinks about Gwen. It hurts like hell, and sometimes he wishes to be a child again, with genes not scrambled like breakfast eggs, and with a chance of everything becoming right with a big mug of hot cocoa. However, mostly these days he thinks of Harry because Harry must be still alive, still there somewhere, fighting the Goblin in their shared mind, and it’s all Peter’s fault and Peter wishes he knew how to help, wishes for it so much that it hurts his brain with all the effort.

When he helped Dr. Conners, he was naïve and ignorant of some major facts, and it was a disaster. When he refused to help Harry he was naïve and ignorant of some major facts, and it was a disaster. Seems like no matter what he chooses he’ll lose in the end and will have to mop up the blood and gore that come out of his decisions. 

The light in the garage is bright and yellow. Behind locked doors, Peter sits perched on the back of a chair and slowly, carefully draws blood into a syringe. It looks deceptively human and smells coppery like blood should. Do spiders have blood similar to the human one? Peter has no idea. He should probably read up on that.

“Would you be able to save him?” Peter asks. The syringe in his hands doesn’t answer, and Peter doesn’t expect it to, to be honest. Although, that’d be really helpful.

Here it is – the blood that Harry craved so much. Peter is fairly sure it’ll make the matters even worse if he just brings it over to the Ravencroft and injects Harry with it but he doesn’t know what to do with it now. Biology is not really his thing. It’s easy and interesting, like everything else, but you can only learn so much when you’re a teenager and you want to do other things as well, not just study. Gwen would know what to do; where to go and what equipment to use for tests.

Peter swallows the tightness in his throat. He can’t ask Gwen, now can he? No one else knows about his secret identity and he should never put anyone else in danger like that so he’ll have to do it on his own.

The radio beside him come to life: a voice through the crackling of static says: “The rhino guy on the 55th, all units copy.” And then the sound of an explosion.

It figured that the guy would be back. The ones he can’t get rid of at once always are.

* * *

Peter is swinging right and left, hither and thither. He’s fast with his web but the Rhino is fast too, and the jerk is shooting missiles out of his metal arms. 

The final swing catches the web ends. Peter lands on the cracked asphalt and jumps again, not wasting any time. The Rhino growls loudly, turning after him. Peter goes faster, faster, one of the missiles brushing past his thigh, and as his blood splashes bright red into the air the silver webs cover the Rhino from the front, nice and cozy. Peter slides between the Rhino’s pillar-like legs and shoots two webs on the way. A tug, a turn, a tug – and the Rhino is down, literally and metaphorically. 

Well, it’s not like he is totally out of commission now but Peter can rectify that. He somersaults onto the Rhino’s shoulders and with a hearty pull tears off the back panel of the helmet. While the Rhino tries to move his giant arms in the right direction and get to Peter – too bad he wasn’t designed with the ability to scratch the back of his head, apparently – Peter crushes fine microchips with his fist. The metal and plastic fly away in crumbs, and there are a few holes in the costume where the spandex couldn’t hold its own but Peter doesn’t care. He hits it again and again, suddenly furious, and the Rhino is already still and unmoving under him, and there isn’t a single chip that hasn’t been damaged, and Peter brings on blow by blow. 

The inside of his mask grows moist and warm, and eventually his hand stops, his shoulders hunch, and he leaps to the ground. 

He looks at the Rhino, all covered in webs, as if wrapped in a crochet napkin, glances at the police standing by and asks: “Anybody got a tin opener?”

Usually Peter leaves as soon as he’s sure that the police have things well in hand. Even though he thinks they aren’t doing a terribly good job (why would this city need a vigilante then?) he lets them handle the aftermath of the dirty work. This time he stays right there by the enemy he’s overpowered, arms crossed defensively against the surprised looks of the policemen. 

“I’d like to talk to that one,” Peter says, nodding at the Rhino. There’s an audible grunt and a curse from inside the metal suit. 

“We’re supposed to take him down to the station until the FBI come to pick him up…” says a younger policeman. His ears stick out from under the uniform hat, and there’s about a bazillion of freckles all over his face.

Harry used to have freckles, too, when they were children. And isn’t it a little stupid that one of the first things that Peter noticed when they met again at Oscorp was that Harry had managed to get rid of them? His skin was perfectly pale and light, but Peter could remember exactly where each one of the freckles was. He always found them cool, unlike Harry himself.

“No need to stick to formalities so strictly,” says another policeman, clapping the first one on the shoulder. “Who cares if we bring the guy and the suit in together or separately? Also, for all we know he could be injured in there. We kinda have to get him out.”

Peter doesn’t really like it, even though he flat-out asked for it. The law is being violated here just because he’s the Spider-Man, and the police seem to think he’s a bit more equal than everybody else.

Well, he isn’t but he really, really needs to talk to that guy. The more information Peter has, the better. He needs time to figure out how to help Harry, and he’d better deal with the maker of rhino suits as soon as humanly and spider-ly possible.

* * *

An actual tin opener would be of great help but they make do without it. Peter ends up doing most of the work on prying the guy out and avoiding his trembling punch. The guy looks like a dangerous convict, which he is. He looks at Peter and sneers through the blood that pours from a wide gash across his forehead.

“Heh, Spider-Man. Since you’re here, I gotta pass on a hello to you.”

“A hello?” Peter echoes. Something inside his stomach clenches tightly. 

“Yeah, from your ol’ buddy. Mr. Osborn.”

Peter’s morning cereal – that, in all fairness, should have been digested already – threatens to get out the way it came in.

“How do you know Harry? What did you do to him?” Peter’s fingers twitch from the need to fold them into a fist.

“Why would I do somethin’ to a nice guy like ‘im?” the convict blinks. A drop of blood falls down from his wet eyelashes. “He got me a job, ya’know. An’ I got a nice uniform, too!”

He pets the remains of the suit like one could pet a dog. 

He has got to be lying.

Why would he be lying?

There’s a noise like a helicopter. Actually, it is one.

A series of gunshots cuts through the relative quiet. People start screaming, sparkles fly off the ground, the young policeman falls to his knees holding his bleeding elbow. Peter dodges half a dozen of bullets – man, the awkward moves he has to put on for that, it’s like he’s doing waltz at a breakdance contest – and looks up.

Harry – no, the Goblin – smiles at him viciously from the open door of the helicopter. The teeth are rotten, and the eyes are that deadly green colour of spider venom. His skin that used to be unblemished, flawless – Peter hugged him, Peter remembers how soft it was against his cheek and ear – has a greenish tint now and is covered with a purple pattern of bulging veins.

“Harry!” Peter shouts over the noise of the helicopter. 

The Goblin laughs. The second door of the helicopter is opened by someone in a hat and sunglasses, and the Rhino guy tries to move in that direction. Peter webs him on the back without looking and throws him to the side where there bound to be some more policemen. 

“Harry is dead!” the Goblin yells in response. “Dead and rotten, just the little old me in here!” 

“I don’t believe you!” Peter shoots a web at him. 

The Goblin shoots back some flame from a gun mounted on the helicopter side and ouch, it hurts. It may well be that the spandex has melted right into Peter’s skin and he’ll never be able to take the suit off again. Not to mention that the web’s been burned into non-existence.

“I know you and all your tricks!” the Goblin is positively gleeful. “Come on, Spidey, let’s play some more, I’ve got more toys with me!”

Peter hears sirens at a distance; lenses of numerous cameras reflect light from the sun. For reporters it must be the scoop of the week… unless they get caught in the crossfire. 

“Harry!” He hurls himself at the Goblin. Another flame almost catches him but he webs the gun and tears it off just quickly enough to miss the deadly heat by a tenth of an inch. “Harry! Come here! Harry! Fight him!”

Harry is there. He _is_. Peter refuses to believe otherwise. He’s allergic to believing otherwise. He loathes it. His religion forbids it. 

He catches the Goblin by the shoulder and makes him fall; the inertia makes him roll away but he webs himself closer and slams his forearm into the Goblin’s throat. This thing still needs to breathe in order to be able to murder somebody, right? A pumpkin bomb pops out into Peter’s face from the shoulder of the Goblin’s suit, and Peter swats it aside like a fly before it explodes. The Goblin’s eyes burn with hatred.

A bullet hits Peter. It goes in and out his burnt and beaten body, and it’s like a separate sort of fire that makes him unable to breathe, too. The Goblin tries to shake him off in the bullet rain that follows, but Peter doesn’t let him go because he just can’t. 

They fight, clutching at each other, leaving bruises on their faces when they get a hit and holes in the pavement when they miss. 

“Harry!” Peter wheezes. His breathing is ragged, and the Goblin doesn’t look his best either. “Harry! Please! Fight him! I need you, I need your help, Harry!”

The Goblin laughs. It’s a strange thing but his breath doesn’t stink, even though the teeth are all gone for. It smells faintly in a strangely enticing sort of way, actually. Must be the venom.

Peter pins the Goblin down; blood loss is a bit too much, even for super-spider healing powers, and there’s buzzing in his ears. 

“Harry,” he whispers. “Harry, please…”

The Goblin laughs and laughs at him and almost gets free; the jolt sideways Peter gets at this moment saves his life – two bullets just scrape past his temples and don’t break any bone but the mask is cut clean and falls down around Peter’s neck like a ridiculous jabot. Peter presses down, both of the Goblin’s wrists in one hand, the other closing around the Goblin’s throat; their faces are some tiny distance away and the Goblin’s forehead is feverish to the touch. The Goblin can’t laugh, he just opens and shuts his mouth like a fish out of water. 

“Harry,” Peter says. 

His lips are right by the Goblin’s and when he speaks they brush. This single innocent touch of skin to skin does things to the Goblin – and no, not the kind of things that would make Peter blush; although, the way in which the Goblin mindlessly screams into Peter’s mouth and arcs in a powerful seizure would definitely up the rating of a movie. 

Peter doesn’t let go, and a few seconds later the Goblin’s body goes slack. Then his eyelids tremble; the green tint disappears from the skin, leaving only sickly paleness behind. The teeth in the slightly open mouth look normal now, clean and even. And when he opens his eyes they are blue.

Harry’s eyes.

“Harry!” Peter chokes on the name. “Wow, Harry… Sleeping Beauty much?” he quips because if he doesn’t he is sure to cry from relief and joy and now is seriously not the time.

Harry’s eyes focus on Peter’s face, and Harry frowns.

“Peter? You called me?”

“Yes, yes, I did, and you came.” On an impulse Peter kisses Harry’s cheek; then nose, then chin, then upper lip, then cheekbones. The kisses leave a salty aftertaste on his lips, and it’s just about the most perfect taste in Peter’s life. “Harry…”

“Whoa, Pete, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Harry turns his face away and tries to free his hands but without the Goblin’s strength he does not have much chance. “Wait, wait… oh fuck.”

Peter drinks in the sight of Harry, his best friend who he let down so gravely, and misses the moment when the surprised ‘o’ of Harry’s mouth transforms into a scowl and Harry bites him on the nose.

“Ouch!” Peter lets him go and Harry scrambles away, looking disheveled and angry but still Harry. “That hurt, you know!”

“Really?” Harry hisses. “Nice to know I can hurt the invincible Spider-Man. Will there be some blood this time, or will you refuse to give any again?”

There’s this little problem with Harry hating him too, not only the Goblin. Peter forgot all about it. 

“Harry, listen to me,” Peter begs. “I’ll figure it out, I’ll run some tests, we’ll find your cure together. I was an idiot for not helping you before and I’m so, so sorry…”

“You’d better be,” Harry snaps.

He suddenly starts shivering all over even though it’s warm. Another seizure goes through his body, and he screams again, his head high up and his throat bared. 

“Harry!” Peter rushes to him, but a series of bullets catches him in the ankle and he falls over. It doesn’t take long for him to get up again but it’s enough for the Goblin to take over. 

“See you later, lover-boy!” the Goblin shouts, jumping into the waiting helicopter. 

They take off and the Goblin proves to be quite a pilot avoiding Peter’s webs that try to latch on to the chassis.

The helicopter disappears in the sky, and it becomes very quiet. Peter licks his lips and the salty taste of Harry’s skin melts on his tongue. He’s bleeding all over, and he should really get started on that cure.

* * *

It’s not hard to pretend he’s sleeping when Aunt May checks in on him, except that the bundles of old tees he has wrapped hastily around his wounds might look suspicious under his not-so-thick blanket. However, it goes well, and as soon as Peter is alone in the room, he jumps out of bed and heads over to the garage. Thank god that Aunt May thinks a man needs some private space for his manly toys and never comes into the garage unless Peter invites her; now he can worry a bit less about the copious amounts of blood he leaves everywhere while pulling leftover bullets out.

It hurts like hell, and, frankly, if he’d known what the rest of the evening would be like, he wouldn’t have bothered with the syringe. It would be enough to just collect some in a paper cup now.

One of the bullets cracked the bone just below the left knee and Peter limps when he has to walk over to the shelf with sewing supplies. The suit needs patching up, too. 

The spandex in his lap, he turns on his computer and googles ‘genetic research’. He skips the articles on the ethics and legislation and reads up on the latest developments. Well, he knows better than many that the really promising things don’t get published in the Internet for everyone to see but he needs some basics as well. He takes breaks during which he works on the holes in the suit and mulls over what he has just read. It’s all good, rather fascinating, but it doesn’t give him any insights for helping Harry.

When done with the suit, Peter digs up his father’s papers. It’s late already, and he is hungry and tired; he eats whatever he can find in the drawers of Uncle Ben’s old desk – chips, crackers, and an old wrinkled apple. There’s nothing to drink and some crumbs fall down his sleeves and itch mercilessly; he is thirsty and sleepy and every time he thinks of getting up and putting the papers away until tomorrow he remembers Harry’s face, his angry blue eyes with needle points of pupils, the softness of his skin, and the way his heart was beating so damn fast while Peter was kissing him – and he stays.

By morning Peter has a plan. It may be a stillborn child of his exhausted, grieving brain but he’ll do it anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

“Where the hell are my shots, I’d like to know!” Mr. Jameson is displeased with the lack of pictures to go with the article about yesterday’s debacle. “I need those pictures, Parker, and if you ain’t gonna provide them, you might as well get the heck outta my paper! There are many wannabes with cameras out there who’d sell a kidney to be in your place here!”

Peter bites back an irritated ‘Sorry, was too busy at the time to take selfies’ and shrugs. He desperately needs coffee; the coffee is only given out for money so he needs his paycheck for the previous set of photos. Too bad he ran into Mr. Jameson on the way.

“I’ll do better next time,” he says. “The Green Goblin got away, and so did his thugs so there’ll be a new scuffle soon enough.”

“I’m not paying you for promising to do better next time! You ought to have done well last night, kid.”

‘Kid’ is a sign of Mr. Jameson calming down. He knows as well as Peter does that no one else has managed to produce a decent close-up of Spider-Man so far and, no matter how much another wannabe wants to be, the chances of them replacing Peter are truly slim.

“Yeah, right,” Peter rubs his eyes aching with the lack of sleep. “Oh, by the way, I wanted to tell you some good news: the Daily Globe called me earlier this week and said they’d double match whatever you pay me for my pictures and they’d give me a better camera for free to make some real high-res. What nice people, aren’t they just?”

“What?!” Mr. Jameson bellows. “They are deceiving, evil people, Parker! They’ll use you and throw you away, you hear me? Better stick with the Bugle, that’s your best shot in life if you ask me.”

“Right, Mr. Jameson. But it is a tempting offer, isn’t it?” he knows it’s petty but he just can’t help it this morning. It’s only fair that he’ll make Mr. Jameson uncomfortable once in a while, too.

“It’s a lie, Peter,” Mr. Jameson throws an arm over Peter’s shoulders with so much affection that one could think Peter was his son. “Don’t you listen to them, listen to me and everything’ll turn out mighty fine. In fact, Betty, why don’t you write Peter here another check? He’ll buy something pretty for himself, it’ll help him forget all about those nasty, nasty people from the Daily Globe. Argh!”

He shudders demonstratively showing his contempt towards the pure evil in human form that are, apparently, the Daily Globe staff and heads back to this own office with a “Go get me some Spider pictures, my boy, the front page is waiting for you!”

Betty giggles into her sleeve. 

“Well played there, Peter,” she says, opening a checkbook. “Nobody actually called you, did they?”

“What makes you say that?” Peter smiles. It’s hard not to smile back at someone as friendly as Betty. “They did. And the NY Times offered me a triple wage, as a fact.”

“Seriously?” her hand stills for a moment before resuming the writing. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Pete, you know I really like you, but you’re a doofus for turning down an offer like that.”

“I know, right?” Peter takes the paycheck from her hands, smiles, points at her with both index fingers as he steps back towards the elevator. “Just couldn’t make myself leave you all guys, what would you do without me here?”

They both laugh and Peter holds the wide smile on his face until the elevator doors close. God, he is ready to sell his soul for a grand mocha with extra sugar and some mint syrup. 

On the other hand, maybe another sort of syrup will do just as nicely. Green is not something Peter is prepared to enjoy these days.

Interlude I

Gaby is disappointed. She has been for a while. 

“Stupid alien goo,” she says. The goo crawls up inside its glass dome, closer to her voice. “You’re useless, you know that? An amoeba from outer space. No brains, no nothing.”

There must be a reason why she stays late at work and talks to a puddle of black alien goo which never answers – not to words, not to anything else. She used to think she had one. Young, ambitious, smart – the perfect candidate for the position of one of leading specialists of OsCorp. That old hag at the human resources must have really hated Gaby on sight to send her to the goo duty. No progress has been made since this thing was found in the seventies, in a crater in wild forests of Russia. 

No. Fucking. Progress.

“Chill,” she says to the goo. It’s both metaphorical (she doesn’t like it when the thing crawls enthusiastically closer, it gives her the creeps) and literal (back then it was discovered that the thing slows down in cold environment so the dome is always turned into a sort of a fridge when no one is around). 

The glass covers with frost on the inside. Through the foggy surface Gaby can see the alien goo turning into a small, sad ball.

“See you after lunch, I guess,” she says. If she never sees the damn thing again, it’ll still be too soon. 

As she leaves, she shuts the door behind her with unnecessary force. She doesn’t hear the fragile old glass from the seventies tremble from the vibrations like a thousand of tiny bells and fall to the floor in many pieces not one of which is bigger than her eyeball. She also doesn’t hear the alien goo slither lethargically down and move towards the door.

It’s a very quiet sound, after all.

* * *

“I do understand your situation, Mr. Parker,” the dean is charm personified; the sympathy written all over her face is deep and sincere. “However, I’m afraid we can make no exception. The tuition fee for the first term must be paid by September, or we cannot keep you enrolled.”

“Sure,” Peter mumbles. “I understand, ma’am. I’ll think of something, then.”

He leaves the dean’s office and stops in the corridor to lean on the wall. He doesn’t really know what he expected today; he knows all too well that, being a superhero with little time to study, he blew his chances on getting into ESU on a scholarship. They still took him with open arms, or course, but he has to pay just like everybody else. 

He wouldn’t mind if he had the money.

“Bad news?”

Peter glances to the right. There’s a guy he doesn’t know, blond and muscular, with a kind and simple face.

“Sort of,” he manages a smile and puts his hand out for a shake. “What about you? The classes haven’t started yet, and you’re here. Just looking around before the school year?”

“Oh, not really. I’m in my second year now; I’m the photographer for the university newspaper. Thought I’d take a look around in advance, maybe catch something interesting.”

“Yeah, right,” Peter only now notices the camera that the blond guy has hanging from his neck. “One never knows where a great scoop will turn up.” He taps his own camera lightly.

“So you’re a fellow reporter of sorts? Do I need to be afraid of competition?” The guy smiles, studying Peter’s face, but he doesn’t look all that cheerful. 

“Nah, man, no worries,” Peter swats the guy’s doubts with a generous gesture. “I’ve already got a job; doing a freelance gig for the Daily Bugle, and they have me pretty busy. No time for another newspaper anyways.”

“The Daily Bugle, huh?” the guy frowns. “Wait, are you that hotshot that takes all Spider-Man’s pictures, Peter Parker? I heard you were young but didn’t think you’d be my age!”

“Yep, it’s me, guilty as charged,” Peter winks. “And you are?..”

“Eddie. Eddie Brock. Listen, how do you catch that guy in action? I mean, he’s fast! And he’s usually moving a lot when he fights all those big nasties. Do you have a deal with him or something?”

“Not really,” Peter stifles a laugh. “I think he just likes me and my camera skills. Either that or I’m just the luckiest guy in the city.”

“I could easily believe both,” Eddie smiles awkwardly and scratches his head. “Hey, listen, are you busy right now? I’d really love to talk photography with you. Maybe you’ll have some career tips for me, and I’ll show you around this place. The campus is humongous, you know, it’s better to look at it before you’re late to the next class not knowing where the hell you are.”

“Sounds lovely,” Peter says. It really does, but he has a cure to synthesize and a super-villain to track. “I gotta go, though. Busy bee, that’s me. Raincheck, OK?”

He claps Eddie on the shoulder and heads to the stairs without looking back.

“Yeah, man, whatever,” Eddie calls to his retreating back. “It’s cool! Oh, by the way, who on earth bit you on the nose?”

* * *

His father’s papers contain scarce information on the inner layouts of OsCorp. They do mention, however, that after the experiments copies of test logs went for storage to the biocable development unit servers. Peter remembers the place from that fateful visit. So Peter puts on his suit and swings over to the OsCorp tower. The glass of its windows shines so brightly that it blinds Peter at some point and he almost misses his target when shooting the next web. 

Nonetheless, he slams into the wall at nearly full speed.

“Oof,” Peter says. “Do I even need enemies to bash my head in? I seem to be doing fine on my own here.”

He flips over and starts climbing. He looks into the windows briefly but they are all offices and labs, and there are people in most of them. Finally, there’s an empty janitor’s closet with a narrow window; Peter pulls the frame up and slides in. It stinks of cleaning supplies; the strong chemical scent that makes Peter sneeze. He hurries out and sticks to the ceiling to avoid running into an unsuspecting OsCorp employee. 

He takes a shortcut at the stairs, allowing himself a freefall with an abrupt stop just inches away from the floor; no one else uses them when there are several spacious elevators so he isn’t spotted by anyone. It’s light and futuristic here, just like he remembers, and Peter’s enhanced hearing can’t catch any footsteps or voices. Perfect.

He crawls along the ceilings of the corridors, checking the engraved plaques on the doors. The units are apparently huge, and the doors are quite far away from each other; it’s going to take some time, and Peter can feel the impatience tingling in his fingertips. 

Suddenly, somewhere further down, around the corner, there’s a faint woman’s scream. Peter rushes over there without a second thought; there’s another scream, terrified and desperate, and the door saying ‘CONTAINMENT UNIT’ swings open. A tall dark-haired girl rushes out, trips in her heels, and falls; she scrambles to get up but she can’t, not in the panicked state that she is in. She looks back at the vault and just shrieks like the monsters from under her childhood bed have all come for her now. 

Knowing OsCorp’s line of work, that may well be true. 

Peter snatches her and carries her over to the end of the corridor. No monster shows up when they land, and Peter figures he’s got time for a couple of questions.

“What happened? What is it?”

The girl only looks at him with wide eyes and continues shrieking; Peter sighs and slaps her lightly. It works.

“What’s your name?” Peter asks calmly.

“G-Gaby… Spider-Man? What are you doing here?”

“Just walking past; heard you screaming, thought you could use some help here. What is it, Gaby? What happened in that vault?”

Gaby clutches at his shoulders so much that her knuckles go white.

“It got out,” she whispers. “I don’t know how, but it got out, and it was coming at me when I came back from lunch!”

“It? What is ‘it’, exactly?” Peter glances over his shoulder, and the corridor is as empty as before. 

“The alien goo,” Gaby says very seriously. “It was out of the dome, it broke out!”

“Alien goo? And it attacked you?” Peter would have problem believing that if he wasn’t standing here with his genes mashed with a spider’s like Thanksgiving potatoes. “Where is it now?”

“Must be still there,” Gaby looks at the open door of the vault which is still looking highly innocent. “I’m not going there to check, that’s for sure!”

“You don’t need to,” Peter points at the corridor where he has come from. “Go get out of here; take the rest of the day off, I think. Checking in on alien goo is my job.”

Gaby doesn’t need any extra incentives; as soon as she is out of sight Peter webs the door and leaps right to it, bouncing off the walls in the process.

The containment unit is quiet. There’s broken glass all over the floor around a pedestal of sorts; must be what is left of that dome Gaby mentioned. A puddle of viscous, slowly moving black goo is halfway to the door.

“If that is how they attack people on your planet, you are bound to meet some tough competition here,” Peter murmurs. 

He makes a step towards the goo, and it moves forward, too, somewhat uncertainly as if it’s afraid Peter will start shrieking as well.

“You seem like a nice enough guy… or girl… or just a puddle with no gender… so far.” Peter crouches in front of the goo and regrets not asking Gaby what she knows about it. Was she afraid simply because it’s escaped strange alien goo, or has it been known to do something bad? “What do you want?”

The goo forms several pseudopodia and extends them towards Peter.

“Are you asking me to give you a high-five or what?” Peter smiles. 

The goo seems so friendly and maybe even lonely and scared, and Peter touches it with his fingertips, out of both sympathy and curiosity. That’s when the goo starts moving with lightning speed; it leaps off the floor and hugs Peter’s hand tightly before he could say ‘incy-wincy.’

“Whoa, hold on there for a second!” Peter jumps to his feet and shakes his hand vigorously but the goo is not coming off. He tries to pick at it with his other hand but it’s just too slick to get a good hold. After a minute or two it disappears, sort of soaking into Peter’s suit.

“Wonderful,” Peter looks over his hand but there’s no sign of the goo. “Maybe it didn’t like having contact with me and died or something? It couldn’t have soaked into spandex, could it?”

There’s nothing wrong with Peter or his suit as far as he can tell. There is also nothing else alive and/or threatening in the vault, just him; and he really has better things to do instead of wondering where this bizarre goo went.

“If it hurts me, I’ll know,” Peter decides.

In the meantime, there is a biocable development unit door waiting to be opened.

* * *

Here they are – the all-too-familiar spiders. Ghostly translucent with the slightest tinge of red and blue, they move along their complicated webs with confident dignity and Peter spares a few moments to admire them.

“Hey, bros,” he says because they have his father’s DNA in them, too. “Mind if I take a look around?”

The spiders don’t mind which is expressed in completely ignoring him, and he starts the computer. OsCorp tech is state-of-the-art but their security systems for older projects could use a little improvement: Peter hacks into the system after some time of trying. Holograms are sensitive to the smallest movements of his fingers and the layout is strictly logical and user-friendly. There’s a formula right there, just waiting to be displayed for Peter’s admiration. The human DNA in it is unidentified but Peter knows all too well that it’s his; the spider’s DNA is way too complicated for him to even try to replicate, though. Maybe he can extract it from his blood; the syringe is still waiting for its fifteen minutes of fame to come, wrapped in ice and many layers of gauze, hidden in the only drawer of the garage desk that locks. 

It will have to be enough to help Harry. When Peter was bitten, all sorts of minor health problems he had ever had just went away. Admittedly, there was nothing as serious as Harry’s disease, at least not to Peter’s knowledge, but the mechanism is still the same, right?

He uploads all that might prove to be of use to a USB drive he’d brought along and gets up. His back complains after leaning over the computer in a rather uncomfortable position for what must have been hours. Peter makes a move to stretch but his suit is away ahead of him: the spandex piles up where the sore spot is and massages gently. The ache goes away, and Peter is fairly sure it's the weirdest thing to have happened to him in a long while. That's a lot, coming from him.

“Not that I don't appreciate some tender loving care in the right place at the right time,” he says out loud. "But I'm seriously freaking out right now."

The suit doesn't react to that.

Peter also picks up a portable gene analyzer (it's a pretty large and clumsy apparatus which Peter can only carry in a web sling, but it's portable all right), and gets back to the same closet he used to come in earlier today. Twice he is almost spotted in the corridors and hallways but it's okay in the end, even though he's probably the star of every security camera feed in this place. Maybe Harry or the Goblin told the security guards not to pay attention should any friendly neighborhood Spider-Men show up. It's suspicious but not enough so to investigate.

Peter climbs down into the streets and hides behind some dumpsters to take the suit off. Before he can do the, the suit grows black and melts into nothingness, leaving only what Peter is wearing under it. Hmm.

There are no bad signs or symptoms or anything yet, so Peter leaves it at that. He wraps the analyzer in his jacket, throws his schoolbag over his shoulder, and walks home in a harried pace.

Busy-busy-busy bee, that's him.

* * *

The problem with the analyzer is that it hasn’t come with a user’s manual. Peter tries to google it but all he can find are some bits and pieces on what the analyzer is supposed to be able to do and not a word on which buttons one needs to press. Figures that a gene analyzer instruction manual would be harder to find than that of a microwave oven. 

“Now let’s try that…” Peter drops a bit of his blood on the working surface (at least that is easy to recognize after working with a microscope in biology classes) and fixes a lens over it. The blood is now firmly covered from all sides. “What do I do next, hah?”

He studies the buttons all of which have pictograms on. It’s going to take him a week to decipher, that’s for sure. What if he pushes this one, with a little tornado on it? A good swirl might be just what he needs to make that droplet tell him its secrets… He pushes the button. There’s a whirring sound – “Does this thing work on servomotors or something?” – and the lens cracks. Peter blinks at the web of damage that is now covering the thick glass; his spidey sense flares up, and he manages to duck at the last moment before the lens explodes in his face. 

“Peter? Peter, are you all right in there?”

“’m fine, Aunt May!” Peter shouts and makes a move towards the door. The glass crunches under his sneaker, and he cringes. “Everything’s peachy!”

“I heard an explosion, are you hurt?”

“No! No, I’m totally okay, just… just a science experiment! Getting ready for classes!” Peter grabs a broom from the corner and sweeps the shards of glass hastily together.

“Peter, there’s definitely something fishy going on,” says Aunt May. “I didn’t see you in the morning, and now you’re trying to blow up the garage. Do I need to come in?”

“No!” Peter looks around desperately, looking for a place to hide the stupid analyzer. “I… I’m – I’m not decent, Aunt May, you can’t come in!”

Brilliant, Parker. First the whole ‘washing the American flag’ thing, now this?

“What? Why would you take your clothes off in that dingy, dusty garage? Peter, I’m coming in right now!”

The door handle turns. If only Peter was wearing the Spider-Man suit now, he’d be able to web everything suspicious to the ceiling, Aunt May would never think to look up there! He still puts his hand out, purely out of reflex and sheer hopelessness… and there they are, the webs, shooting directly out of his wrist instead of the webshooters. With an astonished “Oomph!” Peter yanks the mess he’s just made up to the ceiling, and it sticks. Are these webs black, or is it just the bad lighting in the garage?

The door opens and Aunt May comes in to find Peter smiling sheepishly. 

“Young man,” she says strictly, “what is going on here?”

“Nothing,” Peter makes his best puppy eyes at her; he’s itching to climb up and take a closer look at these out-of-nowhere webs but he knows better that to blow his cover now. “Why, should there be something?”

Aunt May frowns.

“Is that a bite on your nose?”

Peter squints to follow the direction of her look, and yep, the bite that is courtesy of the angry Harry has not healed fully yet. It doesn’t hurt or anything, and it wasn’t anything more than a mark on the skin to begin with but it’s still clearly visible. That guy at ESU today, Eddie, mentioned something about that, too. 

“Yeah?” he offers.

“And who did you get it from?” Aunt May has her hands on her hips. “And don’t you feed me a story about you trying to pet a neighbor’s dog unsuccessfully!”

Peter who was about to say something along these very lines shuts his mouth and spares a second to think.

“And what story would you believe?” he asks, having decided to go offensive. “This dog thing, that’s what actually happened! What do you think it was? I flew all the way to Australia and surfed with sharks? Is that better than a moody dog that didn’t like me?”

“Every decent owner puts a muzzle on their dog,” Aunt May is taken aback but not defeated.

“Every decent owner has a decent dog which doesn’t attack people for no reason!” Peter starts believing the story himself. Those scoundrels who take fighting dogs out for a walk without a muzzle will so get a piece of his mind next time, that’s right! “Really, Aunt May, it’s been a tough enough day without you trying to interrogate me like I’m some kind of criminal.”

“What happened?” Aunt May softens visibly. “And by the way, did you even have breakfast this morning? The kitchen was spotless when I came downstairs, that’s really unlike you.”

“I think I had a glass of orange juice,” Peter doesn’t really remember. “Or it might have been last night?”

“Come on,” Aunt May orders. “I’ve got your lunch waiting, and if you know what’s best for you, Peter Parker, you’ll eat it all!”

Dodged that bullet. Peter leaves the garage with Aunt May. The analyzer, the syringe with his blood, and the remains of the lens stay stuck to the ceiling, and Peter really hopes they won’t come off while he’s eating under Aunt May’s watchful eye.

He is so not in the mood to stick a needle into himself again.


	3. Chapter 3

One of Peter’s least favorite activities is being grabbed by the ankle and hurled into a nearby truck. It leaves bruises on his shoulder blades, and the truck owner later appears with an interview in the Daily Bugle, complaining about the threat to business that is Spider-Man. However, it is difficult to avoid when fighting this guy. Juggernaut. How pretentious is that?

Peter somersaults to the top of the truck, shoots webs to a couple of lamp posts, jumps back so that the webs become taut as strings, and flings himself towards Juggernaut; it’s a short and incredibly fast flight, feet forward. The ultimate Spider-Man kick! Peter really hopes it’ll work.

Ouch.

Juggernaut’s armor is good. He doesn’t seem to even notice the impact that has Peter’s whole body weak and buzzing in an unpleasant way. 

“Prepare to get squashed!” Juggernaut lifts his huge armored fist.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass!” Peter webs Juggernaut’s eyes and gets out of the way. The fist meets the pavement, sending cracks all around. 

While Juggernaut is getting up from his crouching position and ripping the web off his face, Peter wraps him all over in webs like a Christmas present. He is probably too enthusiastic about that because soon – way too soon, if you ask Peter – the webshooters go dry. By that time, Juggernaut resembles a giant cocoon; he’s writhing on the ground, muffled curses coming from under the web. 

“Please, be enough?” Peter suggests.

With a roar Juggernaut breaks free from the web restraints.

“It is so not my day today,” Peter concludes.

“Hey!” someone touches Peter’s shoulder, and he needs a lot of willpower not to react instinctively with a solid punch. “Can I take your picture?”

Well, that is new.

“Sorry, no can do.” Peter covers the lens of – what was his name? Ediie, yeah, why wouldn’t Eddie just stick to the ESU paper, huh? – Eddie's camera with his hand. “Go hide somewhere safe, will you? There's no telling just how dead you'll be if that crazed pile of meat gets to you.”

“But...”

Juggernaut breaks off a fire hydrant with a kick, and it goes flying straight at Eddie. Peter grabs him with a little more force than necessary and with a few precise shoots and swings brings him over to the open balcony of a nearby cafe. 

“My camera!” Eddie tries to reach it where it's lying on the pavement even though the effort is completely pointless.

“You'll get a new one,” Peter says soothingly. Down below Juggernaut makes noises worthy of a mentally challenged bull and stomps all over Eddie's camera without noticing it. 

“I don't have money for a new one! Wait, I've got my phone with me, the camera is shitty there but it'll do at a short distance...”

“No!” Peter is ready to groan with frustration. “Stay here and don't even think of getting mixed into the fight!”

“But you let Parker take pictures of you! He’s not even here now! What, am I not good enough for you?”

“Parker is... different,” Peter turns away and jumps back down to the street.

“You know what? Screw you, Spider-Man!” He hears.

Well, that's one fan less. He might find time to think ruefully about it when he's not so busy. Like, in a few years or so.

Juggernaut lifts a car, with an obvious intention of throwing it at Peter.

"Hey, big guy, there are people inside, put it down!" Peter shouts. 

Juggernaut throws, and the inertia of the car makes Peter slide backwards along the asphalt while hugging the car for dear life. The people inside scream, and Peter's heels burn. There's the end of this pair of Spider-socks, apparently.

Peter lowers the car onto the ground, gently as he can even though he feels veins on his temples bulging and throbbing.

"Run! Shoo!" He waves his hands at the people in the car, and it seems that was the thing they needed to shake off their fear paralysis. 

Peter watches them go with a feeling of self-satisfaction and almost misses Juggernaut punching him. The blow lands on Peter's forearm instead of his chest, and Peter flies into a shop window. Hundreds of glass pieces fall around him, cutting though the suit, lodging in his hair, ears, eyelashes. 

Aunt May is going to expect one hell of an explanation for this.

"Careful there!" Peter yells. Juggernaut is coming with the same dumb stubbornness that the Rhino possessed and it makes Peter wonder if they both came from the same source. "This suit doesn't sew itself, you know!"

The ground where Peter rolled, avoiding another blow, is stained with blood from a million tiny cuts. No arteries are damaged but the sewing will indeed take a lot of time and effort. Provided Peter survives this fight, of course.

He presses his hand to a deep gash right over his clavicle - a huge piece of glass landed there and cut to the bone - and feels both the flesh and the material under his fingers move in a business-like manner, closing the wound and the hole. It's disturbing, and when Peter glances at it he sees that the new material is black, seamlessly blending into the red at the edges. He might be mistaken, though. He has to roll his eyes down to catch it in his peripheral vision, and it may just be the light playing tricks on him. 

Although, knowing his luck, that is highly unlikely.

Further deliberation has to be postponed: there's a super-villain with steel-reinforced fists coming in his direction. Peter jumps right out of reach at the last moment, leaving Juggernaut to crash head-first into the wall. There's a huge hole in this wall now, and there are cracks running up and up. It's a massive office building, and at the rate at which Juggernaut chips off more and more chunks of it, trying to get free from the debris, not all people will have time to evacuate before it falls. No amount of webbing would be able to hold a building of this size steady for long enough, and that is under the condition of Peter still having some in the shooters.

All in all, the situation looks rather desperate.

Most of Juggernaut is covered with the bright red armor but beneath it there's an ordinary man; a common thug who is too quick to believe the Goblin's promises. Peter spares several seconds of precious time which he doesn't have and studies the armor.

It doesn't cover all of Juggernaut. His eyes are unprotected, as well as his fingers and shoulders, and his sagging cheeks are open for attack.

"Hey there, Jugger-junk!" Peter yells. "What ditch have you crawled out of? Have you found your tin can there, with all the other trash?"

It works, of course. It's ridiculously easy to rile up even the smartest of villains, and Juggernaut's IQ is probably closer to an ape's than to a human's.

Just one effort is needed to free Juggernaut, and he charges at Peter at once. Peter waits for just the right amount of time and makes a perfect somersault finishing in an outstretched arm. His fingers hit Juggernaut under the eyes with their combined speed and force; he can feel Juggernaut’s eyeballs twitch and spasm uncontrollably in pain at the tips of Peter’s blunt fingernails. Time seems to be slowing down and Peter feels attuned to the world like never before, his heart beating steadily, his every cell singing with the power that is his and his only to command and wield. Peter never wants to stop feeling it.

Juggernaut falls to his knees, his hands pressed to his eyes; there's blood leaking from between his thick fingers. A cold, calm kind of anger coils in Peter's heart as he delivers kick by kick to every vulnerable point of Juggernaut's body. The armor comes off suddenly easily, and Peter can't stop beating him until a flash of black attracts his attention, and he understands: that's him. His legs, his arms, his stomach are all covered in black spandex, and only the spider on his chest is milky silver. Juggernaut, stripped of armor and aggression, bloodied and unconscious, lies before Peter. 

The building is visibly leaning to the left, and people inside it scream and wail.

“No, you don’t!” Peter shouts at the building. “New-York is no Pisa, just FYI!”

He grabs a lamp post and pulls it up; he knows it’s just about on the wrong side of the limit of his strength but he has to try.

Surprisingly, his muscles are stronger than he remembers; he tenses, his heels digging into the ground, and finally, after what seems like a century, the post is torn out of the sidewalk. Peter leaps to the building and props it with the post. There are sirens blaring a few blocks away, and the building only has to hold on for a little time until all the people in it are safe. Another lamp post follows the next, and another. Peter throws in abandoned cars, climbs to the top of an office building across the street, and jumps. The cars screech as they are pressed under his feet, and he shoves up some more into the vacated space at the top of the pile. The building doesn’t lean any further, and Peter climbs up and plucks people out of windows like carrots from a garden bed. Pluck, hug tightly, bring to the ground, climb back up; again and again. Sweat runs down his face under the mask, salty and almost acidic judging by how it burns his eyes. He can barely see by the time he gets down for the last time, and his legs wobble. He can’t afford weakness, not now, he can’t; there must still be someone in there, and he must get them out before the building topples over like a sand castle…

“Relax, Spider-Man,” a fireman tells him. Through the sweat and involuntary tears in Peter’s eyes everything is blurry but he can recognize the uniform. “We’ll take it from here. By the way, a new suit? Stylish!”

The fireman gives him a thumbs-up and climbs up a ladder. Peter looks down at his hands – they are still black. 

He runs.

A lamp post that is far enough to have survived the carnage that Peter has wrecked works fine as a hold to gain momentum, and soon Peter is climbing up a building, another huge office building with floor to ceiling windows; he stops in his tracks, paralyzed, when he sees himself in the shining glass. Everything is black; he is black all over but for the spider on his chest and the semi-transparent eyes of the mask. And there’s not a single tear anywhere.

* * *

There's a thriller from the fifties on TV. A girl, pretty like a doll, shrieks in fear and the sound is terribly annoying. Peter reaches out to the remote but it's too far and his fingers only grab air. A smooth black tentacle rises out of the back of his palm and presses the mute button. There; much better now.

Peter is not freaking out anymore. Admittedly, he may have gone overboard with Juggernaut today but that asshole deserved it, didn't he? And the new black look is good on Peter, not to mention the enhanced healing and automatic suit repair. The alien sludge must be a symbiote of some sort; and it's friendly as far as Peter is concerned. Maybe it's not even alive - it might be a kind of alien nanobot or something. You know, to help the little green men survive in their unpredictable intergalactic journeys. And if it's a living thing... who says it has to be bad? Symbiotic relationships flourish in nature for a reason.

Peter touches the laptop pad, and the screen comes alive. Where there were rows and rows of equations padded with diagrams, a DNA model appears. The new recipe for cure is being run and Peter awaits the results with anxious attention. There is no room for mistake here; it's not a school science experience where one can simply air the room after having failed and try again. Who knows what Harry can turn into due to a blunder of Peter's? The Goblin is not the worst variant. He could become a giant half-human half-spider or something. That would be extremely gross.

Also, Harry won't thank him for the need to blow-dry his hair every morning not only on the head but also on eight legs. So "no" to that one. 

The modeling is complete and Peter presses the Enter key to see what kind of creature will be the result of that. 

Ew.

Scratch that, Peter will have to start again.

He juggles the gene sequences, coming up with nothing every time. The girl on the screen dies a gruesome death and is followed by a Donald Duck cartoon.

Peter knows it's useless. He has a lot of important stuff but he lacks the key component: Harry's DNA. Now where can he find a sample? Someplace he really doesn't want to go again.

Does he have any choice, though?

* * *

The OsCorp tower is empty and quiet at this time of day. The orange and pink sunrise peeks from behind the skyscrapers and outlines a shadow lighter than Peter himself.

The alien symbiote is an extremely handy tool. There's no need to break anything or crawl in via the ventilation system when all he needs to do is to let out a black tendril no thicker than a silk thread and watch it slither in between the finest gaps and open the window from the outside. 

Inside Peter lands on both feet, crouching, hands in fists. There's no attack, however, and Spidey sense is silent. Has the Goblin completely abandoned his former home? Well, it is the place where he's most expected to appear so coming here for a nap and a snack is not wise, him being a wanted criminal and all that. But not even a single booby trap? Suspicious.

Peter walks the rooms which he remembers all too well and soon reaches Harry's bedroom. On the table there is a comb. Peter inspects it closely and finds what he came here for: two thin shiny blonde hairs stuck between the comb teeth.

The hairs go into a tube. Peter closes it tightly and lets his suit hang on to it for the time being. It's only on the roof, when Peter is ready to swing back to Aunt May's, when the inevitable happens.

“How rude of me not to show up, Spider-Man,” the Goblin sing-songs. “An old friend comes by, and I'm not home to greet him!”

“No worries, Gobby," Peter grins. "I can entertain myself just fine.”

“But where are my manners? At least let me offer you some pumpkin juice!”

The Goblin throws two bombs at him and Peter jumps up, letting them collide with each other without him in the way.

“Thanks, but no, thanks!”

Peter shoots some webs, aiming at the glider, but the Goblin avoids them with some impressive gliding skills.

“Love the new suit! Black is slimming.”

“Have you just called me fat? Oh honey, my feelings are so hurt!” Peter sends a pumpkin bomb flying sideways with a swift kick. 

“How can I ever make it up to you, sweetheart?” The Goblin presses one hand to his heart and throws some pumpkin blades at Peter's webs that are getting very close to the glider.

“You may start with turning yourself over to me,” Peter offers with a grin. He knows the Goblin can't see it under the mask but he's sure it'll be heard in his voice. “I'll tell you what to do next!”

“Bossy, are we?” The Goblin charges at him at full speed. “Must be nice to be able to shut your pretty mouth some time - gotta figure out how to do it!”

At the last moment Peter webs himself over to the lamp post and the Goblin crashes into the wall. Broken glass and shards of concrete fall down, in the direction of the street where tiny people swarm like ants, vulnerable and weak. Peter shoots a web that catches up with the debris and then another one, to glue this mess to an office window.

The Goblin has already recovered. Of course. Peter can't help but a little bit admire his tenacity and strength. 

“I've got an idea!” The Goblin shouts. “I think it'd be a shame to explode an ass as fine as yours so here's an offer: let's join forces and rule this city as one!”

“Are you only asking me for my body?” Peter snorts. “Dude, there's a sexual harassment lawsuit with your name on it around the corner, I just know it!” 

“Who said anything about harassment?” The Goblin bares teeth at him, and oh boy, does this guy need to invest in a toothbrush. “I won't do anything you won't ask for, lover-boy. By the way, you're the one who kissed me first, remember?”

Peter can't argue with that - he did, even though it wasn't intentional at the time.

The Goblin does not attack; he just hangs in the air at a safe distance from Peter and waits. As if Peter would ever seriously consider joining forces with a super-villain!

On second thought, it's no regular random super-villain. It's Harry. There's no one whom Peter wants to be with more than Harry right now. He can see Harry's crooked smile in the Goblin's grin like in a fun house mirror and the inability to reach his best friend is simply maddening.

He's a hero, right? He can do whatever the hell he wants; he can handle it, handle the Goblin. He won't let him hurt anyone, that's for sure. The new alien-riddled suit is awesome; Peter's as good as undefeatable in it. 

Nothing can go wrong while Peter's on watch, so it won't.

“Deal!” Peter shouts before he can change his mind.

“Really?” The Goblin looks surprised. Peter could web him, using this genuine confusion but he doesn't. They have just made a deal, after all.

“Really,” Peter says. His cell phone alarm vibrates in his waist pocket with a reminder of a starting class.

Being late on the first day doesn't sit well with Peter. He shoots a web to a building across the street and swings.

“Something's just come up!” He waves at the Goblin. “What do you say we meet tonight at your place, honey? I'll bring you flowers!" 

“It's a date, Petey!”

The Goblin's laughter accompanies Peter for a few more seconds before he gets too far to hear it.

* * *

The door squeaks on its hinges. It's not loud but painfully audible in the huge auditorium with good acoustics and everyone turns to look.

“Sorry,” a pretty redhead girl smiles sheepishly and hurries up the aisle with professor Octavius's disapproving glare boring into her back.

Everything about her is cute. Her little upturned nose, her soft locks, her long legs in high-heeled boots, her slim arms pressing a stack of books and notebooks to her chest. Peter whistles quietly to attract her attention, smiles, and points at the free seat to his right with his thumb. 

She flops on the bench next to him and glances at him from beneath her long eyelashes with gratitude and an unmistakable spark of flirtation.

Peter tears a page from his notebook and writes: "The name's Peter Parker. What's yours?"

The girl smiles as she writes her answer.

“Mary Jane Watson. Just call me MJ, all my friends do.”

“Am I your friend already? Boy, am I lucky on this fine morning!”

“Yeah, I guess you are.”

“Wanna grab a coffee some time?”

“Whoa, tiger, you sure don’t waste time.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“I think it is.”

Peter smirks.


	4. Chapter 4

His phone vibrates with a new message. It’s a barely noticeable sensation but the suit sort of grumbles around the phone and it makes Peter stop and fish it out.

“You stood me up tonight, lover-boy,” says a message from the contact named ‘Harry.’ “You better have a good reason for that.”

Peter remembers MJ’s melodious laughter and the way she licked whipped cream off her teaspoon. 

“Are you jealous, honey?” he types with his free hand, having glued himself to the wall with the other three limbs. 

“Do I need to be?”

“IDK, maybe? What are you gonna do about that?”

“No idea. Maybe go glide around the city and throw bombs at pretty red-haired girls. They are so annoying, you wouldn’t believe.”

Not nice. Really, really not.

“Don’t I have a right to get a coffee with a friend?”

“Do all your friends have a cleavage that huge?”

“It’s not polite to look there, a lady’s eyes are usually located someplace else.”

“The more you piss me off, the bigger the chance that hers will be on different sides of Manhattan tonight.”

Peter shoves the phone back into the suit and swings over to the OsCorp tower which is clearly seen from every corner of New-York. Perhaps Norman Osborn was compensating for something when he built a phallic symbol of this size.

* * *

The Goblin is on the roof, sitting on his glider suspended a few feet above the cement floor. His shoulders are hunched and his head is hanging low. Peter feels smug, unkind satisfaction at the picture – is he really jealous because of MJ? That would be… nice. The Green Goblin mooning over Spider-Man, isn’t it just _precious_?

“Honey, I’m home!” He lands on the roof without a sound, his pose calculated and perfect, the suit hugging him with unearthly comforting warmth. The Goblin’s eyes shine with unnatural light in the dark; the metal of his armor reflects the distant neon light of the city. “Did you miss me?”

“Like I’d miss the Eiffel tower up my ass,” the Goblin snaps.

Peter walks closer to him, one slow step after another. The Goblin’s hand moves over to the pocket bulging with bombs and Peter raises his hands in the universal gesture of peaceful intentions. 

“Easy there, big boy, I’m not going to give you a noogie or something.”

He stops right in front of the Goblin and hooks a finger under his chin. The Goblin allows Peter to tilt his head back with graceful cat-like sexuality the likes of which Peter appreciated today in MJ’s mannerisms. Right now, though, he can honestly say that her flirtatious looks have nothing on the Goblin’s heavy-lidded stare charged with promises that make Peter’s skin tingle and his blood rush south.

“You want me all to yourself, don’t you?” Peter whispers.

Instead of answering, the Goblin grabs Peters’ shoulders and jumps off the glider; the sudden attack makes Peter fall on his back. The air is knocked out of his lungs and he is tense but the Goblin does nothing else that could be considered hostile.

“Look at you,” the Goblin touches his forehead to Peter’s through the mask. “The mighty Spider-Man spread under his worst enemy, his delicious supple body still smelling like that pretty girl’s perfume.”

“Yeah, she does wear a bit too much of it,” Peter shrugs. “But it’s cute on her. And what was that about my body again?”

The Goblin doesn’t give Peter a comprehensible answer. He just bites his lower lip – and this is so _Harry_ that Peter’s insides start aching with need – and slowly, carefully grinds his hips over Peter’s. 

The metal armor presses on Peter’s cock on just the right side of both painful and sweet. Peter wants more of that and the Goblin does it again and again as if he can read Peter’s mind. Peter moans and moves his hips up to meet the Goblin mid-movement.

There is a clicking sound and a minute pause between the Goblin’s movements, and then there is only the thin layer of Peter’s suit between them, and he can feel the Goblin’s precum leaking, the hardness of his cock against Peter’s, and it’s mind-blowing.

“Do you like that, lover-boy?” The Goblin’s lips brush on Peter’s ear, and this sensation through the spandex is a torture in and of itself. 

“What… what do you think?” Peter exhales. Desire is building up inside him, hot and coiled like a wire. “Remind, what is that armor of yours even for?”

“The brave soldiers of America need to pee sometimes just like mere mortals,” the Goblin giggles and hugs Peter’s legs with his, their cocks pressed so very close and almost not moving. “I thought it’s a good idea to let the little Goblin out for a walk through that door.”

“The little Goblin? Are you freaking serious?” Peter chokes on a laugh and pushes one hand between them. The skin on his knuckles scratches against the Goblin’s armor and breaks a few times but it’s of no importance right now as Peter finally gets his hand where he wants it and starts moving it frantically.

The suit is in the way and he cannot take both of them in the same time. The Goblin doesn’t like it either and together they tear a hole in the spandex. For a fleeting second the chilly air hits Peter’s burning, rock-hard cock and then they touch skin to skin, hazy with want.

The Goblin screams as if it hurts him; as if he is on fire, not in the tight ring of Peter’s deft fingers. His eyes roll back, and his face transforms; his body is shivering so much that it creates additional friction and Peter moans in delight.

“That…” the Goblin says in a softer voice – Harry’s voice, “that’s a bit over the top, Parker. First you kiss me, now this?”

“Tell me you don’t like it,” Peter whispers. Harry’s blue eyes with dark circles under them are pure magic, and he longs for looking at them as much as Harry’s delicate hand on him. “Tell me you don’t want it. I’ll leave you alone and jerk off in the shower imagining you there with me.”

Harry shudders at the words, and Peter doesn’t need to hear the answer out loud to know it.

“Just so we are clear,” Harry whispers. “I’m fucking you, not you – me. Got that? I’m fucking you, you filthy lying hero of a traitor, I’m having you right here on my roof just like I always wanted, and if I tell you you’ll suck me with that smart mouth of yours until I’m dry, and I’ll ram into your sweet ass until it bleeds, do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Peter is so close it’s painful; Harry’s hand wraps over his own and moves in unison with him. “Yes, yes… please..!”

Harry’s thumb swipes over the head and there’s a squeeze at just the right angle that sends Peter over the top, and he screams himself raw as he spends onto their joined hands. Harry follows him, and Peter feels the fresh wetness on his stomach and if he could he’d come again from that alone.

“Yes,” Harry whispers, peppering Peter’s face with small kisses echoing the ones Peter gave him once. “Yes, like that, Peter, here’s my boy, come for me.”

Peter can only groan to that because his cock, already sensitive after one climax, twitches to the sound of Harry’s voice like a brave American soldier at a colonel’s command.

“Did you think of me when you fucked all those models in Europe?” he quips.

Harry’s face changes from relaxed to reserved. He lets Peter go and rolls over without a word.

Peter keeps silent too. His breathing slows down until it’s normal again and his heart is no longer pounding in his ears. His thoughts clear somewhat and the silence between him and Harry starts being uncomfortable. It was probably hurtful and uncalled for, what he just said, even if it’d please him immensely if Harry admitted to having done just that. 

‘Nice work, Parker,’ Peter thinks. ‘Your first time having sex and you offend your partner who is also your best friend. Well done.’

The thought leaves a sour aftertaste in his mind. His first time, and it went so not like he’d imagined before. There were different people in his fantasies, the ones he knew personally and the famous ones who he only ever got to see on TV; the details varied from one furious midnight wank to another but he never thought it would be an angry sex on a roof with his best friend-slash-nemesis-slash-god knows who. 

He feels robbed as he imagines all the ways he could make Harry forget that stupid remark of his right now if they were in a room with a king-size soft bed, with wine and chocolate-dipped strawberries that Harry loves so unashamedly, their bodies naked completely, languid and intense as they touched. Instead of that, the silence grows positively deafening, and his cock is cold without the protection of the suit, and it was more like a fight than an act of sex, and at some point something had definitely gone horribly wrong.

Peter props himself up on his elbows and glances at Harry. The latter watches the sky; his eyes are still blue and they shine much brighter than they should.

“Hey,” Peter says quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Harry replies. He sounds calm and resigned.

“Do you, erm, do you have much time until the Goblin comes back?” Peter asks.

“I don’t know. Not much, I guess. Why, are you tired of me already?”

“Well, you can be sort of exhausting,” the joke comes out the wrong way and Peter curses inwardly. “I mean, I miss you when you’re not around.”

“Better get used to it,” Harry shrugs and stretches. His armored suit comes to life and clicks, covering him again with an impenetrable shield of reinforced steel. “It’s mostly the Goblin these days, and I don’t think I’ll be hanging in here for much longer.” He taps his head slightly with his finger.

“What? Why?”

“The Goblin is much stronger than I am. And frankly, Pete, he does things better than I ever could.” There’s sincere bitterness in Harry’s voice, and Peter is at a loss for words. “There’s no reason for me to get out here. I wanted this body to live – well, it’ll live alright if some nosy superhero or another doesn’t turn it into a bloody pancake with bone chips one day. Mission completed.”

He sighs and adds as an afterthought: “I’m gonna miss this stupid world, though. One gets used to it after twenty years.”

Peter’s throat is closed over with sudden fierce fear. He may never see Harry again, and the idea terrifies him so much he wants to curl up, close his eyes, put his fingers in his ears, and just wait until this unthinkable chance goes away forever.

“Don’t!” He’s next to Harry in one short leap, he hands squeezing Harry’s shoulders with way too much spider strength. “Don’t you dare die, do you hear me?”

Harry blinks up at him.

“Did you like being fucked by me so much that you can’t bear to lose it, or what? Why the sudden care?”

“It’s not sudden,” the accusation in Harry’s words is so unfair; it stings like a chip of wood under a nail. “I’ve always cared about you and I always will.”

“Is that so?” Harry chuckles. “I seem to remember one time when you were willing to let me die but not do something about it.”

“I never refused to help you!” Peter hates this misunderstanding, he absolutely does. “I tried to explain you that I need time to figure out exactly how I can help you without killing you but you wouldn’t listen! You always want everything here and now, don’t you? Not everything in the world can be handed to you on a silver platter by a faithful butler!”

Harry sits up, his eyes in angry slits. 

“Silver platter? Righteous much, are we? Do you know what it’s like to be dying, Spider-Man? Have you ever woken up and tried to understand if you can still walk, have you looked for lesions on your body in the shower, have you ever been awake all night, knowing that your body is rotting on the inside and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it?!”

Peter swallows.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I’m looking for the cure right now, I truly am. Just hold on a bit longer, please. For me. For our friendship. Believe me, please, I won’t let you down again.”

“What friendship? You sent that one to hell when you refused to give me a fucking droplet of your blood.”

“You may not be my friend anymore,” Peter says in a pleading tone. “But I am still yours.”

Harry looks at Peter very intently as if expecting him to crack up and declare it all another joke at any moment. There’s a tiny hissing voice in Peter’s head that says: ‘Why do I have to be under his scrutiny? He must be grateful to his disease-ridden bones that I’m doing it for him, that I still love him, but he has the audacity to doubt me.’ Peter squashes this voice, feeling a tad nauseated from these thoughts – where have they come from, really? – and waits.

“Alright,” says Harry eventually, and there’s a glimmer hope in the way he looks at Peter now. “I’ll wait for you to come with the cure. But seriously, even if I try as much as I can, I don’t have a lot of time. The Goblin is just too stro…”

Harry doubles over mid-word; his breath is hoarse and quick. His hands grow knobby and his nails are turning into claws. A dark web of veins appears on the back of his palms. The fringe covers his face as he trembles, tight and compact as a knot; and then he lifts his head, and the Goblin looks at Peter with his ever-present smirk.

“Nice meeting you,” Peter says through the dryness in his throat. “Gotta run, though. It’s a school night, you know, I need my beauty sleep.”

“See you later, lover-boy,” the Goblin jumps up, flips over, and lands onto the waiting glider. He looks slightly more disheveled than usually but otherwise it would be impossible to guess what has just happened between them. “Pass my greeting to the redhead when you see her!”

Peter jumps into the night and swings away wordlessly. The suit moves in the area of his crotch and closes the hole seamlessly. Good.

Interlude II

Harry is in the middle of nowhere. At the same time, he knows very well where he is: in his own head. Or in the head that used to be his, to be precise.

He can’t see, hear, smell, taste or touch. The Goblin took control over all that. The only thing that Harry can still do is think; and with nothing to distract him or at least to take the edge off he kind of wishes he couldn’t do that, as well.

In the nothingness Harry only has phantoms created half from the memories, half from his feverish imagination. Mostly it’s Peter; in his Spider-Man suit with the mask off, which is definitely imagination because Harry has never seen him like that. The Peter of Harry’s thoughts, construed of Harry’s vague and confused recollections of what it’s like to physically perceive the world, laughs in Harry’s face.

“Did you seriously think I’d give you my blood?” The imaginary Peter asks. “You think way too much of yourself; Peter Parker or Spider-Man, I don’t give a shit whether you live or die.” 

It stings in the worst possible way. However, Harry knows Peter never actually said that, not directly, even though he certainly acted this way. Besides, real Peter wouldn’t say ‘shit’; he’s too much of a goodie-two-shoes to swear like all mere mortals do. So Harry makes the evil Peter go away with an effort of will; although, the sting and the hate don’t go anywhere.

When he saw Peter again, he was so glad. It was all too easy to fit into the old abandoned friendship and trust Peter with everything, including his life. The trust once betrayed doesn’t stop bleeding inside Harry, and sometimes he just closes his (strictly metaphorical, these days) eyes and lets the pain wash over him. It’s unbearable and mind-numbing.

He did a poor job of sleeping with all those models in the last few years. He never could stop thinking about his ex-best buddy with big doe eyes and a sunny smile (he had checked Peter’s Facebook page and yep, too much doe eyes for one planet, really) – and God knows, it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Dear late papa would be so disappointed with his sole heir.

And to think a glib of Spider-Man’s would be so accurate. Damn fucking bug.

(his chapped lips, his perpetually disheveled hair, his bright eyes Harry knows to be behind the mask, his lanky body, the casual, innocent sensuality with which he moves)

The hatred comes and goes like ocean tide. Harry feels it, and he knows that the Goblin does, too. Sometimes Harry thinks that the Goblin still keeps him around just for that hatred, and rage, and the need for revenge. It must be nice for him to have such a cocktail boiling day and night by his side. 

Harry also thinks of the kisses that he and Peter traded and the hot mess on the roof. It felt a lot like revenge, sweet and highly satisfying, fueled by the noise and the fury of Harry’s feelings. He can’t forget about it; the ghost of touch dances on his fingertips, and the dark, unreasonable lust eats away at him like acid. He promised Peter to hold on, to fight the Goblin; in all honesty, he has no idea how to do that. The Goblin heard every word Harry and Peter said to each other but he seems to find it amusing at best. Certainly not life-threatening.

Harry would find it amusing as well if he could look at it as an outsider. He means, gee, how many times does he have to trust Peter before he gives up on that? Will that be before or after he runs out of numbers whose names he’s learned at school?

Harry remembers Peter’s hopeful face when he asked for this trust; the deliciously ravaged look Peter had then, the way his body – warm, living – felt under Harry’s hands. 

(he can also remember little Peter protecting little Harry from bullies, and the fresh, soothing scent of Peter’s skin – like cool milk on a hot day, and Peter’s hopeful look that day at OsCorp as he watched Harry walk down the stairs, so intently, and a million other things Harry wants to forget and is terrified of forgetting)

He can hold on for a little while more. He can try to postpone the final fading and disappearance from the world of the living. What does he have to lose now anyway?


	5. Chapter 5

Interlude III

There are many good things that any self-respecting person should do and Eddie Brock does them all. He gets up early, does some exercise and jogs, then drinks orange juice and swallows a sandwich. It's a routine. After that he usually goes to his classes but it's still summer and all the early classes that ESU offers are really not up his alley. 

Nonetheless, he visits the campus more often than not. It's not like he has much of anything else to do and he needs some action to catch on camera for his online photography course. Not that there's much action going on here, though.

He met Parker the other day, of course. It's pretty exciting to shake hands with a guy who's not even in his twenties yet but has already made a name for himself. 

It was rude of him to blow Eddie off like that; on the other hand, he probably really had things to do.

Eddie walks through the university hallways, looking around. It smells faintly of dust and warmth and there are more spots of sunlight on the floor than students. The only ones who are here at this hour are that group exiting the chemistry auditorium... is that Parker? A science whiz as well, hah?

Eddie watches as Parker walks out of the class side by side with a beautiful redhead who laughs a bit too loudly at whatever Parker is saying. They move slowly, both graceful and confident, and there's a pang of envy in the pit of Eddie's stomach. Well, Parker is not in a hurry now, is he?

Eddie catches up with them in a few strides and offers his friendliest smile.

“Hey, what's up?”

There's a short pause before Parker answers that speaks volumes; a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes that demonstrates painfully obviously that Parker didn't care to actually remember Eddie. Out of sight, out of mind?

“Hey, buddy, how's it going?” Parker smiles. “Here, let me introduce you to the charming Miss Mary Jane Watson.”

“Enchanté,” says Eddie, which is about the extent of the French he remembers from secondary school. “Taking a head start on chemistry? Man, you must be smart.”

“Nah, it's just some basic stuff,” Parker smiles in that adorable way that girls love. Eddie never really mastered that one. “What brings you here today? Looking for a scoop on some destroyed valuable ionic bonds?”

MJ chuckles. Too bad Eddie doesn't get the joke, even though he recalls that the word 'ionic' has something to do with science.

“We were just heading out for hotdogs and maybe a stroll in Central Park,” says Mary Jane. “Wanna join us?”

Eddie does, but Parker cuts him off before he can answer.

“I’m afraid Eddie here is busy,” Parker says with a hit of haughty superiority. “See that phone with a camera? Eddie needs a sensational picture for the ESU student paper. Maybe if he’s lucky, a bunch of armed squirrels will take over the cafeteria and steal the yearly stock of almonds.”

Mary Jane chuckles but makes herself look serious again almost immediately. Eddie feels his ears and face heating up and he knows that it shows on his pale skin that came in one package with the blonde hair. 

“That wasn’t very nice, tiger,” she chides Parker.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Parker smirks at Eddie. “Shouldn’t have made fun of a fellow paparazzi, should I? Let’s go, MJ, those hotdogs won’t buy themselves!”

He hooks Mary Jane’s arm over his elbow and they walk away just like that.

“See you around, Eddie!” Mary Jane says over her shoulder.

“Yeah, right,” Eddie says, watching Parker’s retreating form. 

He wishes he knew how to dish back out everything he has been getting from snobby jerks like Parker all his life. One day he’ll figure it out.

* * *

The sensor keys of the phone beep barely audibly when Peter starts typing.

“Hi, MJ. Wanna hang out tonight?”

“Depends. What did you have in mind?”

“There's a project in Prof Oc's course that requires work in pairs. I thought we could partner up right now and get a head start. What do you think?”

“And here I was hoping you want to see me again because of my wonderful personality. How do you know there's a project?”

“I checked out the curriculum, dah. So are you in?”

“Sure thing, tiger. See you at the ESU library in about an hour?”

Peter sends her a smiley face. Professor Octavius's course is 'Introduction to Advanced Chemistry' and he could really use someone to discuss fine points of reactions with. MJ is smart and, as a bonus, Peter hanging out with her ruffles the Goblin's feathers. 

Maybe it's not wise to tease a super-villain like that but Peter just can't resist the idea. It gives him a feeling of power which he could get used to. Also, he sorely needs a break after a whole day of fending off J. Jonah Jameson's calls ("Front page pictures ain't taking themselves, kid, you got something for me?") and finding a common language with the gene analyzer without breaking the new lens (it took all his savings for the last six months to replace it). He has cracked down Harry's DNA and singled out the part responsible for the disease. It's an essential part which, in simple terms, means that Peter can't just mix up a gene cleanser with some spidey boost to back it up – he has to construct something to replace the sequences that need to be knocked out of their amino-acidic seats. That's a whole new level of complicated because: see the Harry-turning-into-a-ferocious-web-spinning-monster-bad-idea thing mentioned above. 

In short, he's meeting MJ tonight and apres nous le deluge.

* * *

MJ is punctual which is good. When girls want to impress guys, they have a tendency to show up fashionably late, and, as sweet and attractive as she is, she just doesn't interest Peter in this way.

"Hey there," she greets him. Her hair is loose on her shoulders like a wave of tamed fire. "What did you have in mind for our project, tiger?"

“Arrrr,” Peter growls. MJ laughs.

“Seriously, though?”

“I was thinking some research on genetics? The chemistry of gene binding and so on.”

“Isn’t Prof Octavius a world-renowned expert on genetics? He went grocery shopping once with his genetically modified pet vulture-rat on his shoulder. All the papers were crazy with that news.”

“For someone who skips reading the curriculum you’re remarkably informed,” Peter teases.

They swipe their brand-new library cards against the code-reading device and they are let in to walk up a positively ginormous staircase.

“I’m not aiming to be a teacher’s pet, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Peter says. “I just… ”

MJ’s look is shrewd but kind and Peter lets go of some of the built-up tension.

“I have this friend who is ill. Genetically, I mean. It’s not curable at the moment. I don’t think I’m the one to figure out how to help him, I mean, I’m just a freshman, but I want to know how it works.”

MJ suddenly squeezes his hand.

“I understand. But research is not enough for a project. Did you have some subject testing in mind?”

“Well, I thought we could work spiders?”

Careful, Pete, he tells himself. Slippery slope there.

“Are you a fan of Spider-Man’s?” MJ giggles.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees with relief. “And you? Do you think he’s a menace to society?”

It’s stupid but he waits for MJ’s answer with such anxious hope as if her opinion really matters.

“I think he’s totally awesome!” MJ proclaims. A middle-aged librarian shushes her angrily, and she and Peter laugh into their sleeves like first-graders.

“All right then! Let’s get started.”

“Can we make spiders with my initials on their backs?” MJ asks as they sit at the library computers, carding through the digital catalogue.

“That’s… creepy,” Peter decides. 

“But cool!”

“And creepy.”

“Killjoy.”

They bicker in whispers as they gather books and get down to outlining their future project. It’s all warm and friendly, the way it used to be with Harry all those years ago.

Well, except the fact that Harry’s eyes are intense blue and MJ’s are green. Every time Peter looks at her he’s reminded that she is not, in fact, Harry, and it nags at him incessantly. 

“You’ve been reading the same page for twenty minutes,” MJ says quietly. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah… I was just thinking about my friend. He’s not well now. This disease – it makes him not who he really is.”

“I sort of know that it’s like,” MJ smiles shyly. “My father drinks. A lot. He didn’t use to be like this but now he’s not the Dad I knew when I was little… sometimes it’s like there’s a horrible monster inside of him.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter offers. 

There’s awkward silence.

“Why don’t you check out this thing?” MJ shoves at Peter a huge tome. “It’s professor Octavius’s doctoral thesis, and it’s on genetics!”

“And what will you be doing?” Peter opens the books obediently.

“I’ll check my e-mail,” she says.

Girls.

Then again, she has no reason to hurry. It’s not like she has a friend with a little green problem planning to take over the world or something.

“Oh!” MJ presses her hand over her mouth.

“What is it?”

“I’m subscribed to the Daily Bugle news feed, and there’s the latest report about that guy Spider-Man took down a while ago, Juggernaut.”

“What about him? Did he escape?”

“No,” MJ looks away from her laptop monitor and her lips tremble with an emotion Peter can’t quite name but it’s definitely nothing good. “He’s still in the hospital. The doctors say he’ll live after all but he’ll stay blind forever.”

“Blind?” Peter echoes.

“Yes. Spider-Man hit him in the eyes… he must have miscalculated his own strength. It’s so horrible, Peter! Spider-Man doesn’t hurt anyone, not intentionally.”

“Well, that guy deserved it,” Peter says. “He almost demolished a building full of people!”

“There are villains who’ve done worse but nothing like that has ever happened before!” MJ argues hotly. “I can’t imagine what a blow it must be to Spider-Man, having done this to a person. And the Daily Bugle is already starting to use it as an excuse to fuel that ridiculous opinion of Spider-Man being a menace! It was an accident, for crying out loud!”

“How do you know?” Peter asks. He listens to himself but he doesn’t actually feel all that bad about blinding Juggernaut. The asshole got his just desserts, nothing more and nothing less. Peter would do it again in a heartbeat. “Maybe he did it on purpose?”

MJ looks at him, shock and disgust written on her pretty face. She gets up to her feet so quickly that she hits the table and a pile of books scatters along the surface. 

“If you seriously believe that, then you… you are… just awful!”

She turns on her heels and runs out of the room. Peter makes himself smile apologetically at a visibly annoyed librarian. 

“Guess I’ll have to find a new project partner, hah?”

He doesn’t feel the lightness that he tries to put in his voice. He feels cold and sort of hollow inside; he should be able to feel what MJ said but he isn’t. 

What has he become?

And then he hears it. The tiny voice in his head, hissing, whispering, echoing.

Jusssst desssssertsssss. That’ssssss it. Be with ussss, join usssss. 

“Who – us? Who are you?” He cries out.

We are Venom. 

His hands darken: the black comes out gradually, covering his skin bit by bit. Peter tries to tear it off with his nails but the web-textured blackness is invincible like water and he only hurts himself tearing off his skin. It grows back immediately, though, and the blood that has come out is absorbed by the black.

It runs up his wrists and spreads under the sleeves of his shirt. Peter can feel it growing further, taking up more and more of him.

“Young man, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to lea…” the librarian never gets the chance to finish – Peter jumps up at the sound of human voice and runs towards the door.

If Venom takes over while he is still here, his secret identity would be blown. He needs to find someplace to hide; somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed…

He slams open the bathroom door. It’s blissfully empty, no one at the urinals or washbasins; not many students are likely to visit the library before the actual school year starts. Peter falls to his knees and clutches at his head trying to stop Venom from covering his face as well.

All Peter’s efforts go in vain, however. The symbiotic goo covers him from head to toe; his deadly armor that has been subtly changing him for days before he even noticed.

“Go… away…” Peter exhales. 

All of his willpower is directed at rejecting it, fighting it. Venom hisses, giving in just a bit – the tip of Peter’s ear, a half of an eyebrow – and then taking over again.

“Leave me alone!” Peter cries.

A stall door squeaks warily.

“You okay there, man?.. Spider-Man? What the heck?”

The voice is vaguely familiar. Peter’s eyes are hazy but he recognizes Eddie Brock. 

“Run,” Peter chokes. “Go away!”

Eddie doesn’t move an inch.

“In trouble, huh? Let me just take a couple of pictures for the Daily Bugle,” Eddie spits. “Not so high and mighty now, are you?”

He takes out his phone. Peter has neither time nor strength to explain to him what’s going on. He needs to think fast: what is Venom afraid of? Vibrations. That girl, Gaby, and her high-pitched screams; the phone with a new text message. Where can Peter find it?

Through the window of the bathroom he can see the church. The bell-tower. Venom hisses angrily and bites into Peter’s skin like a million of tiny darts – it means Peter is on the right track and oh god, it hurts so much.

He smashes the window with his fist and shoots a web outside.

“You are not getting away from me this time!” Eddie shouts after him.

Peter shoots another web mid-swing but the shooter doesn’t work – a brief glance confirms that Venom has covered it, jammed it with its – their – plasticine body. Peter sticks to the wall which he has just been about to hit and jumps. 

The world is a swirl and he barely understands anymore which way he is going. Good old ESU caring about religious students, having that church so close. Peter leaps into the top of the tower, already hardly able to think through the blazing pain, and slams face-first into a huge bell that is hanging in the middle.

The ringing goes right through his body, overwhelming and as loud as complete and absolute silence. Venom screams like a wounded animal and splashes out in tangling tentacles, leaving Peter’s face free. Peter clenches both hands into fists and hits the bell again, putting all his body weight in it, and then again and again. The bell rings quickly and chaotically, moving like a racing heart; Peter tears off the screaming Venom, freeing inch by inch of his own body.

“Get off me!” Peter yells. 

Venom resists. It’s symbiote. It probably doesn’t have much of a life without another living organism to latch on to. It’s trying to wrap itself around Peter’s hands and gain the ground it has lost and Peter has to deliver a blow after blow to the bell when Venom becomes stronger; Peter can no longer tell by the sound if the bell is still ringing because there’s constant deafening ringing in his own ears now.

Bit by bit, Peter pulls Venom and himself apart; as Venom loses contact with Peter, it shrinks and Peter rolls it into a tight ball like a piece of dough and peels it off. 

“There you are!” Eddie appears in the hole leading to the stairs. He is out of breath but he looks determined. “Erm… Parker? Is that you? You are Spider-Man?”

Peter might have a quip or two about Eddie’s superpowers of observation for this occasion but he is too busy. He somersaults, hitting the slowing bell with both feet, and the vibrations ebb at him, flow through him with the blood, make him dizzy. Venom hisses and shrieks – nothing remotely resembling human speech anymore – and gives in more and more with each new bout of ringing.

When Venom is just a pile of goo on the floor again, Peter feels it immediately. Nothing and everything changes; the world is less sharp but brighter and softer, the air is cooler and fresher. He’s only himself again; no symbiote poisoning his very being. 

“Don’t come near it!” Peter warns. He’s exhausted and his head is swimming and throbbing but he can’t afford rest just now. “Don’t touch it, it’s dangerous!”

Venom holds out a trembling tendril towards Eddie and Peter strikes it with a thick web line. How can he destroy this thing? Fire? Water? Ice? Acid? Cutting off the air? The ideas are certainly worth a shot but Peter doesn’t have anything with him to try them out here, at the top of a bell-tower of all places. 

“What is it? Some experiment that will kick you out of the university and straight into jail, I hope?” Eddie comes closer to Venom and it moves to meet him, jerkily, shaken and in pain.

“It’s an alien symbiote, and it’ll take over you if you don’t keep away!” Peter webs Venom to the floor. Apparently, without a host the symbiote is not all that strong so it can’t break through the webbing but it worms its way out through remaining gaps. “Go! Run! Let me handle it.”

“I’m tired of you dismissing me, Parker!” Eddie snaps. 

“You don’t understand!”

Venom stretches into a thin wire, black and smooth; the bell is still ringing and it makes Venom shiver and hiss.

“It’s asking for help!” Eddie shouts. “You’re killing it, you menace!”

“Now is so not the time to go all Greenpeace on me!”

Eddie lunges towards Venom and Peter jumps to prevent them touching. He tackles Eddie to the ground but Eddie is stubbornly reaching out for Venom. Peter grabs his shoulder and yanks him aside; however, he is a split second too late as Eddie’s fingertips come into contact with Venom.

That tiny touch is enough. 

Venom slithers onto Eddie faster than Peter makes a breath; Eddie’s body is gone, hidden under the surface of angry alien blackness. A powerful kick tosses Peter aside. He lands on his back, gasping for air, and can only watch as Venom gets up and steps closer.

Whatever it was that let Peter eventually take control – Eddie evidently lacks it. There’s nothing human in the figure in front of Peter any more; no subtlety, no long-term mind games. Venom is huge, slick and black with the exception of a distorted white spider on the chest; the eyes are white slits with no pupils, and the mouth is now a wide snout full of sharp triangle-shaped teeth. A long, thick tongue comes out and Venom licks its thin lips.

“We came to you with friendship, Peter Parker, and you rejected us! You will pay for that.”

“Eddie!” Peter shouts. “Eddie, I know you’re still in there! Fight it! You can beat it!”

Venom half-laughs and half-growls.

“There is no Eddie Brock now! There is only Venom!”

Peter’s fingers close over Eddie’s phone that is lying nearby, forgotten in the heat of the fight; he throws it in the direction of the bell with all the strength he can gather right now. The bell answers with a double ringing, one of the bell itself and the other of the phone crashing into the metal side. Venom howls, clutching at its head, rearing tentacles blindly, and Peter can see glimpses of human skin and a checkered shirt beneath. 

“It is not over, Spider-Man!” Venom roars and then leaps from the tower, shooting black webs as it swings away with frightening speed.

Peter sits up. He should be glad, he has won the battle for himself; but he feels bitter and guilty instead.

He knows why.


	6. Chapter 6

“Kids these days,” grumbles Aunt May, dabbing at the cuts and bruises on Peter’s face. “When will you forget this dangerous skateboard of yours?”

“It’s no big deal, Aunt May,” Peter shrugs. “Ouch! That hurt!”

“Sit still, I’m not done yet.”

Peter sighs and follows the order. The sooner Aunt May is finished with his face, the sooner he can retreat to his room and tend to all those injuries that he is currently hiding under his clothes. 

He can think more clearly now than over the previous few weeks. A quick overview of the mess that is now his life horrifies him. Somehow, helping Harry stopped being his priority; he crippled Juggernaut; he behaved like an asshole all around; and he didn’t even notice it until it was almost too late. 

Guilt and grief ache more than any physical trauma ever could. He has got to set it right – the parts of it that can be righted, anyway.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Aunt May offers.

“It’s just… everything is so complicated. I screwed up something, big time. I…” Peter is at a loss for words, and Aunt May takes pity on him and hugs him tightly. 

“Maybe you need time to relax and think. How about you have some fun with friends? Harry Osborn called today and asked that you call him back.”

“What? Harry?”

“Why do you sound so surprised? Have you two had an argument?”

“Sort of,” Peter mumbles. “What did he say?”

“He said he couldn’t reach you on your cell and he wanted to talk to you about a girl.”

Aunt May smirks. Peter feels cold and numb inside. 

“A girl? Did he tell you what her name was?”

“No, but he did say she was pretty and you liked her very much. Do you think I can meet her sometime, Peter?”

“Yeah, maybe later. I gotta go, Aunt May, see you!”

“Where are you going? It’s late!”

“Harry and I need to talk! Don’t wait up!”

* * *

What was that about teasing a super-villain not being a swell idea? Peter can say it all over again.

The OsCorp tower is empty and dark; no sign of the Goblin or MJ. Peter swings all over the city until his webshooters are dry, and he starts feeling desperate. Where could the Goblin have taken her? Where is his lair? Peter thinks of calling him and asking directly but his cell battery is dead. No wonder the Goblin had to use the landline.

It's late and Peter is out of ideas. The Goblin has to contact him, though; what is the (twisted and evil) fun of holding someone hostage if you don't get to give any ransom demands? Peter can't just go home and turn in for the night.

In an almost hysterical fit of anger and regret – he shouldn't have put MJ in danger, he should have controlled himself and Venom while fighting Juggernaut, he should have tried harder to come up with a cure for Harry – he shouts into the silent, starless sky;

"Let her go! I'll do anything you say, just leave her out of it!"

There's a heavy pause and then something makes a 'ding'. It's his own right webshooter and Peter is one hundred per cent sure he didn't install any dinging devices there.

Under the strap there's a paper-thin flat circle of light metal. It's warm from the contact with Peter's wrist; a tiny red light is blinking with regular intervals. A bug. The Goblin must have been eavesdropping on Peter since – most probably – their last encounter. When Peter thinks about that, he feels instantly half-hard and embarrassed beyond belief; the Goblin could have planted it up his behind at the time, and he wouldn't have noticed.

Peter makes a step to the left and the bug dings again. The Goblin must have sent a signal to it and turned it into a homing device. Peter walks left and gets rewarded with a few more insistent dings. It seems all he has to do now in order to walk into the Goblin’s trap is follow the sound.

If that’s what it takes to rescue MJ, that’s what Peter will do.

* * *

Without his webbing, Peter has to walk all the way. A couple of times he catches people looking at him curiously; everyone knows, though, that Spider-Man doesn’t travel on foot so they must think he’s a fan in a costume. Nobody asks him questions; he only has to ignore a group of half-drunk guys looking for trouble who whistle at him and offer him to fight in order to find out if he’s as tough as the real thing. 

The bug dings with lesser and lesser intervals. When the sound becomes constant, Peter stops and crashes the bug with his fingers before examining his surroundings. 

He is at the entrance to the abandoned Roosevelt underground station. How on Earth did the Goblin find out about its existence? Does he know how important this place is to Peter, or did he just decide it’s a good hideout for someone who wants to keep a low profile for a while? 

Peter crawls in, keeping to the shadows. He can’t see anyone inside and for a brief second he regrets squashing the bug before actually meeting the Goblin – and then his spidey sense flares up furiously. An inhumanly strong blow has him rolling on the floor while someone is laughing. He recognizes the laughter.

Venom.

“Didn’t think I’d have company?” The Goblin sing-songs, leaning down to look Peter in the eye – well, in the mask lens, to be precise. “My little black friend told me all about you, Spider, so many interesting things about you!”

Peter looks into the Goblin’s mad green eyes. He can’t see Harry no matter how much he tries.

“Where’s MJ? Let her go, I’m here now! It’s me you want, not her.”

“Why the rush, Peter?” The Goblin whispers. “Don’t you have to do anything I want first? That’s how kidnapping works, in case you didn’t know.”

The Goblin appears to be in the mood to talk but Venom definitely isn’t. A tentacle as thick as Peter’s thigh closes around his neck and squeezes hard; Peter instinctively tries to tear it off but he can’t, not with his lungs yearning for oxygen so much. Suddenly, there’s a quiet ‘pew’ of an energy gun and Peter is free to breathe again.

“I’m not finished with him yet!” The Goblin snarls. 

“The deal was to bring him here and kill him!” Venom hisses. “We want him dead!”

“As do I, my dear alien goo, as do I,” the Goblin murmurs. “But not before I have played with him to my heart’s content. And wouldn’t it be fun to make him do our bidding?”

“We can do whatever we want for ourselves. Spider-Man must die!” Venom is all up in the Goblin’s face; they are so busy with their little staring contest and a heated discussion on strategy that they don’t notice Peter slowly moving out of reach towards the subway car with the equipment. It’s a suitable place for keeping hostages so Peter must check it out; also, if luck is on Peter’s side, the Goblin hasn’t copied any of the information stored here yet – and these vast reserves of knowledge are the last advantage Peter would like to give the Goblin. He has to destroy them while the Goblin is distracted.

He slides inside and MJ is really there, tied up, with a gag in her mouth. She groans something through it when she sees Peter and he hurries to free her.

“Shhh,” he warns before taking the gag out. “Those two are otherwise occupied; let’s not attract their attention to you again.”

“Can you explain what’s going on?” MJ whispers, squirming in her restraints impatiently. “What do they want with me?”

“Erm… they are villains,” Peter offers as an explanation. “Kidnapping innocent people is kind of their thing?”

Judging by the suspicious look in MJ’s eyes, she is not buying it.

“Yeah, right, that’s why they didn’t just snatch someone off the streets but took the pain of coming to my house and interrupting my dinner. They left my parents behind, by the way. What, my Mum and Dad aren’t innocent enough or something?”

“Lay off the sarcasm, will you?” Peter stifles an urge to facepalm. “Rescuee 101: escape first, questions later!”

“If there will be any later, that is,” the Goblin says behind him.

Spidey sense tingles uncomfortably and Peter grabs MJ and leaps to the corner just as a pumpkin bomb goes off where they were a second ago.

It becomes crowded very quickly in the confined space of the car. Luckily, a misplaced attack of angry Venom makes a huge hole in the roof and Peter – quite literally so – jumps at the opportunity.

“Get out!” Peter turns MJ around by the shoulders. “There's the exit.”

MJ heeds his advice but she can't outrun Venom reaching forward and web-shutting the way out.

“What! Is! Your! Problem!” Peter delivers a series of kicks and blows to Venom, ducking away from retaliation punches. “This has nothing to do with her!”

“Except for the fact that her being hurt would make you so incredibly sad, Spider-Man!” Peter can’t dodge a bomb in time, and the force of the explosion throws him off his feet and to the side.

There’s hot air and dust in his mouth and eyes and he can’t really breathe; when his vision clears enough, he can see Venom strutting towards him lazily. A cool, rubber-supple inhuman hand touches Peter’s chest; the fingers start growing until they are long enough to envelop Peter’s torso and hold his arms pressed into his sides. Venom lifts Peter off the ground without effort and smiles like a shark would at the sight of a clumsy bleeding swimmer.

“Give up now, Spider-Man, and we may consider killing you quickly,” Venom snarls. “We know you; we have been you. There is nothing you can do to stop us, so surrender!”

Either it’s offended Eddie speaking or alien blobs get off on proving themselves to be the alpha-blobs just like humans do. 

“If you know me so well, you should also know that I never give up!” There are white spots in Peter’s eyes as he breaks Venom’s deadly embrace with enormous effort; however, he wastes no time leaping over to the exit, tearing off Venom’s webbing, and giving MJ a boost up.

Another pumpkin bomb blows up right under his feet and sends him flying up, to the cracked ceiling; god, he misses the ability to shoot webs so much right now.

Venom catches him mid-air and throws with as much strength as it can master. Peter hits the wall and his bones scream with an effort not to break; he’s not entirely sure that they have all been successful in this particular endeavor. The wall keeps a Spider-Man-shaped dent as he falls off of it, face-first into the floor. 

“It’s not too late,” he begs because it’s about as much as he can do right now, battered and bruised, hurt beyond his wildest imagination. “Harry, Eddie, you can fight it! Fight Venom and the Goblin! Please…”

“O-oh,” the Goblin says mockingly, “why are you talking to people who are not here? Have you got hit on the head, by any chance?”

Peter turns over and slowly sits up. No one stops him – they can see how weak he is now, so precautions are unnecessary. They stand before him, strong and confident, savoring the way he looks now, dirty and trashed, his web-shooters a dead weight on his wrists, his suit torn in multiple places, his hands trembling despite his best efforts to focus.

Is this really how it ends? Here and now, at the hands of two people he could be friends with if not for his own arrogance and stupidity? Before he gets an actual chance to right his own wrongs?

No fucking way. Not until he is well and truly dead.

Peter sheds his gloves and jumps.

The Goblin sees him coming; the flight towards him seems extremely long to Peter, like it’s a movie in slow-mo, and he watches the Goblin’s smugness transform into sheer ferocity. The Goblin’s armor shoots up additional plates, assembling themselves around the head like a helmet; all the other parts of his body are already covered with metal. Simultaneously, the glider, on which the Goblin is standing, powers up and starts gaining altitude rapidly.

“Wait up, I want a ride!” Peter shouts and thrusts his bare hand forward to the Goblin’s cheek.

His fingertips touch the Goblin’s skin; the armor plates crash into his fingers on four sides but it’s too late for them because the Goblin groans and shrieks and arcs in a convulsive fit. 

The armor heads back to the shoulders where it came from and it’s just ‘ouch!’ when blood rushes to the places where Peter’s fingers were almost mangled a minute ago. The Goblin falls to his knees and loses balance on the nervously jolting glider; Peter catches him before he can crash into the floor. Harry’s blue eyes look at him from Harry’s gaunt, haunted face.

“I hate you,” Harry says but there’s no real heat behind his words.

He reaches out to touch Peter; his metal glove disassembles like the helmet just did and Harry gently takes the Spider-Man mask off. He buries his fingers in Peter’s hair, caresses the shell of his ear; there’s raw, vulnerable tenderness in this gesture and Peter lets it warm him up from the inside.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Harry says. “How’s that help you promised coming up?”

“It is,” Peter smiles in the most reassuring way possible. “I’m really close to a working solution. Just a little bit longer, okay?”

“No promises, Parker, remember?” Harry shrugs; his hand lets go of Peter and a flicker of disappointment runs over his features.

“While it is very touching – and nauseating – to see you two make googly eyes at each other, I must interrupt your reunion.” Venom has let Eddie’s head out of the black grip and Eddie seems to be really comfortable in this living costume of his. 

Gloating will always be the death of villains. Seriously, how many of them would actually succeed if they didn’t feel the need to stop and brag to the hero about how all-around cool they were? Venom has been picking up Earth habits and mannerisms too enthusiastically for his own good.

Peter moves out of reach just as Venom strikes; he rolls over to the car, holding Harry close. The rubble from the previous fighting digs into his body through the spandex of the suit. 

“Go save yourself,” Peter whispers. “I’ll take care of him.”

Harry looks like he wants to protest but Peter pushes him away forcefully in the general direction of the exit. 

When Peter webbed Gwen to a car for her own sake, it didn’t work out the way he’d hoped it would. There’s nothing to support the hypothesis of this situation turning out differently but Peter still sticks to trying to keep his loved ones out of harm’s way. He is stubborn like that.

“You’re an idiot, Parker!” Harry shouts. 

Now that several meters separate them, no touching prevents the Goblin from taking over. Harry grunts and cries as he fights it; his hand finds a pumpkin bomb strapped to his armored thigh and he throws it up like he used to throw a ball back when he and Peter were only childhood friends. Disease or no disease, Harry knows how to work with his own body, and the bomb smashes into the ceiling.

Low rumbling comes from above. Cracks run all over, quick and fluid like rivulets of water; chunks of stone rain down on Peter and Venom.

“So long, suckers!” The Goblin cackles as the change is complete. The glider comes to a whistle like a trained dog and carries the Goblin over to the exit, maneuvering in the concrete downpour.

Venom roars in fury and heads for the exit as well. That will probably teach it not to partner up with devious goblins again anytime soon, Peter thinks as he dives into the car for cover.

However, it’s only a short-term decision: the destruction is unstoppable now and the structure of the car was not designed to hold the weight of a whole station. Peter rips the holstering off a chair and wraps in it the hard drives of the computers. Thick dust clouds his way and clings to his lungs; the car roof is barely holding on as more and more wreckage lands on it with each passing second.

Done. 

Peter gets out. His reflexes get put to a test as he jumps, ducks, leans, climbs, and hurls himself forward through this demolition hailstorm; the station seems endless. He takes the inevitable blows, protecting the information he has collected, and the pain leads to stumbles which lead to more blows and more pain. A vicious circle. Peter feels quite amazed when he finally makes it far enough into the tunnel, to where the wall still hold and it’s safe to stop and catch a breath.

After a while he shoves the wrapped drives behind his belt, jumps to stick himself to the ceiling, and crawls on. There should be a way out somewhere; the station is – was – abandoned but it doesn’t mean the tunnel was cut entirely off the underground communication system. 

Well, Peter hopes that it doesn’t.


	7. Chapter 7

When thoroughly beaten up, exhausted, guilt-stricken, sleep-deprived, and literally starving, one can appreciate a hearty hot breakfast to a degree that has never been achievable before. Peter moans with pure sensual pleasure as crispy and greasy bacon melts on his tongue and creates a whirlwind of fascinating tastes when it meets with a large bite of a peanut butter sandwich. Milk and coffee wash it all down, and Peter is floating mindlessly in the satisfied haze, digging into a plateful of pancakes with whipped cream and maple syrup. 

That’s what heaven feels like, Peter is absolutely sure of that. 

As to be expected, he gets brought down to earth very soon.

Aunt May stops watching him with worried affection for a second and flips the channel on the TV. A loud diapers ad is replaced with a news report.

“… an explosion which completely demolished the abandoned Roosevelt subway station. The police were called to the scene by an ESU student who had apparently been an eyewitness to the events preceding the explosion. Her name and the exact details of her statement for the authorities are being kept secret at the moment. The emergency services are studying the debris as we speak in order to find out more information about this bizarre incident. No loss of life has been reported so far…”

It’s probably a good thing that the police got there too late for a direct confrontation with the combined nastiness that was Venom and the Goblin. It might be a bit too much for them to handle.

Peter finishes his pancakes without paying attention to the taste and runs upstairs to finally charge his damn phone.

There are missed calls from Aunt May, Jameson, and the Goblin. Nothing from MJ, though, and Peter types a text to her.

“Hi. Listen, I’m sorry for being a total douche the other day. I shouldn’t have said that about Spider-Man. Will you forgive me?”

While Peter has every right to be a douche about Spider-Man, it may not be the best idea in the world to tell MJ about it. And in any case, it was mean and uncalled for to upset her like that.

In a few minutes a curt answer comes.

“I probably shouldn’t.”

“Please?” Peter writes. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“Oh well… okay but only because I love cherries and not because you deserve to be forgiven, are we clear?”

“Totally,” Peter sends, grinning. He will have to buy MJ the biggest cherry sundae ever made to show her how awesome she is. “Are you alright after last night?”

“What do you know about how I spent last night?”

Oh heck. Way to put your foot right into it, Parker.

“I have my sources,” he answers and adds a winking smiley face for good measure. “A qualified paparazzi here, remember?”

“Even with you miles away I can smell something fishy about you right now,” MJ responds. Peter wishes she was a bit less sharp. “I’m fine. Spider-Man got me out before I could get really hurt. I wonder if he’s okay, though. He could be buried under that explosion.”

“I’m sure he’s just peachy,” Peter sends. “He’s a superhero. They are tough.”

“Thanks for the support, tiger.”

The newfound truce with MJ brings some peace into Peter’s soul. Not much, though, because he still has a lot to do. So he goes downstairs, successfully avoiding Aunt May and any uncomfortable questions she may have, and sneaks out via the backdoor and to the garage.

There, with the door firmly locked, Peter polishes the gene analyzer lens with his sleeve and sets to work.

He has no Goblin gene samples but there is data on that spider venom serum that Harry injected himself with on those hard drives he saved from Roosevelt. It’s a purely experimental thing and if Peter’s father’s notes are to be believed – and Peter can’t find any reason for them not to be – it never even underwent trials on mice, much less humans. It is clear, however, that the final purpose of this work was to create genetically modified soldiers. 

Can’t scientists invent something nice and harmless for once, not a weapon? For example, a serum for pooping rose-scented rainbows or something. 

He misses the wondrous tech he’d seen at OsCorp. How much easier it would be to run recipe by recipe with the kind of interactive holographic stuff they have; but all he has is his good old laptop, the mish-mash of mismatching electronics he has accumulated over the years of his fascination with science, and a whole load of grim determination. 

The Harry sample gives him the general idea of what the result should look like. Peter runs a 3D-modeling software to visualize the DNA spiral and erases the parts responsible for the disease until the spiral resembles a trail of breadcrumbs and sticks more than a sound structure. Then Peter’s own sample comes in handy.

He makes no mistake: he knows he’s been implausibly lucky to gain powers and still look human, to lose every health problem he ever had and not acquire a bunch of new ones. That’s why he takes extra care filling the gaps of Harry’s DNA model with bits and pieces of his own. It’s healthy and strong; maybe a bit embellished with the spider stuff but he can’t take that away and use the leftovers any more than he could scrape the ink out of a pen and hope it would still write when empty.

When the spiral is complete again, multicolored and a tad wonky-looking now, Peter considers phase one done. A few key strokes reveal a normal-looking human as the result of this combination, and a thorough inspection of all characteristics finds nothing bad.

Now, though, comes the tricky part. There is no blood relation whatsoever between Harry and Peter, and no one can guarantee that Harry’s body won’t reject the extraneous DNA. In fact, Peter is no medic but he is fairly sure that the rejection will happen; it takes a lot for someone to be able to donate blood to someone else, more so for separate organs and bone marrow. As for DNA… his head hurts when he tries to calculate possible results.

As lunchtime comes and goes, he becomes hungry again and also tired. His muscles ache from sitting for so long, and his brain feels short-circuited. Peter is not the one to whine but he does allow himself a minute to sit slumped by the table, rubbing his eyes and asking himself why the heck it is him who has to do all this, to bear all this, to make mistakes that ruin other people’s lives. He is just a guy, after all. Your friendly neighborhood average teenager. He does his best every time and it’s never good enough; perhaps it’s some kind of mix-up and another person should have been responsible for New-York all along. 

No such luck, though.

Peter turns back to his computer and studies the DNA model he has come up with. What can he do to ensure his own DNA incorporating into Harry’s without any major hitches? Maybe if his DNA didn’t come as an aggressive intruder but more like someone or something offering a mutually beneficial collaboration…

Oh great, now he needs Venom DNA sample, too? 

Seriously, it’s just perfect. A symbiote that subtly changes the host to a great degree; take the organic webbing – how crazy is that? And Peter’s wrists didn’t even itch or anything. Although, the dislike of vibrations is not a good thing. Wouldn’t do for Harry to cringe in pain every time he gets a phone call. And can Peter trust Venom DNA not to dominate Harry completely? The Goblin-Venom alliance was bad enough; Peter has no wish to encounter a hybrid of the two in a battle. 

Do aliens have DNA, by the way? Or are they made differently somehow? What if Peter puts a piece of Venom into the gene analyzer and it explodes? He cannot afford to buy another lens of this size and quality – the previous purchase undermined his budget considerably as it is. 

“Peter? Are you alright in there?” Aunt May’s voice sounds muffled through the garage door.

“Fine!” Peter yells. Maybe he should move out; she’d worry less and the risk of exposing his identity would be significantly less. Then again, he’d need money to pay for an apartment of his own, and so far this superhero-slash-student gig hasn’t exactly brought him any exorbitant profits.

“You’ve been holed up in there all day. How is that fine?”

“Just busy. There’s a project I need to do for that early chemistry class, so I’m, you know, getting a head start,” Peter explains through the door. It’s painfully clear that with each passing second the locked door draws more and more suspicion from Aunt May so he tries to pack away everything that is questionable and not make much noise while he is at it.

“You are doing chemistry and you locked the door? What if something goes wrong and you suffocate in fumes? For God’s sake, Peter, open the garage, I feel stupid talking to you through the door.”

“In a second,” Peter promises. The gene analyzer is the hardest to hide since it’s huge, and Peter covers it with old jackets.

That looks even more suspicious than when Peter – a third-grader at the time – hid a dozen of candies in his sock and tried to sneak them into his room without Aunt May noticing. Oh hell.

Peter scatters some inconspicuous papers on the desk over the samples and quick sketches of Harry’s smiling face, unlocks the door, and heads back to the corner to sit on the top of the analyzer.

“It’s dark over there,” Aunt May notices immediately. “What are you doing there?”

“Just sitting,” Peter smiles at her as wide as he can, considering all the problems nagging at his mind. “Chillaxing, that sort of thing.”

“You can use the normal language, you know,” Aunt May chides but it’s obvious that Peter’s proclivity for using modern slang is not her primary concern. “Peter, we need to talk.”

“Do we? I was really making some progress here with the project…”

It’s getting uncomfortable to be sitting on a breathtakingly expensive piece of lab equipment. Through the layers of old jackets Peter can feel the smooth hardness of the lens and he has to use some of the spider strength to put most of his weight in the tips of his toes that are propped against the back of a chair. If Peter’s gym teacher could know that, he’d be crying big fat tears of joy. 

“Don’t you usually need a partner for a project?” Trust Aunt May to nitpick (and eventually unravel all of Peter’s lies). 

“I’ve got one but she’s, uh, occupied right now.”

“She?” Aunt May smiles positively devilishly. “Is your partner the pretty girl Harry Osborn wanted to talk to you about?”

“Yeah, that was her, but what does it have to… Aunt May!” Peter feels his face heating up. “I’m not – we are not interested in each other in that way. MJ and I are just partners.”

“Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much,” teases Aunt May; however, she sobers up almost instantly when Peter can’t help but slump his shoulders. 

She sits down by his side ( _the lens the lens the lens! oh please be intact by the time this conversation is over_ ) and hugs him. Peter lets himself lean into her firm embrace; he used to feel safe and content in her arms, and while safety is a luxury he can’t afford these days, the warm motherly affection is still there. 

He knows that they are both thinking of Gwen right now and he is grateful to Aunt May for not bringing the subject up. 

“Seriously, though,” Peter says in a minute. “MJ is just a friend. That’s what I told Harry, too.”

“How is Harry anyway?” Aunt May graciously switches the topic. “You should bring him for dinner sometime. The poor boy must be all alone in that huge house of his.”

“Sometime,” Peter echoes. As soon as Harry is well and truly alone in that carefully styled head of his.

* * *

Diverting Aunt May’s attention to subjects less dangerous that Peter becoming a garage hermit (and even forgetting all about his skateboard which is, in retrospect, pretty much the most suspicious thing he could have done) is not easy but in the end he manages. It helps that she doesn’t know the right questions to ask. 

She is gone to run a few errands and Peter is once again free to pursue the cure for Harry. He presses the space key, calling his computer to life again, and there is still the modeling program on screen. It was still pending when Aunt May came in, even though the model human looked fine. Now he doesn’t. Obnoxiously bright red capital letters flash in and out, in and out over the modeled body sprawled on the modeled ground: ‘SUBJECT: DEAD’. 

Peter groans and lets his head hit the desk with a thump. Back to square one? Again? The task of synthesizing a cure that he has so arrogantly taken upon himself seems insurmountable now. The human genome is still very much a mystery to the best minds in the world, whatever made him think he’d be able to crack it successfully? It’s one thing to mull over algorithms from your father’s old papers and a totally different thing to try and make – or unmake – something practically from scratch.

He wishes he could commission this work to somebody better qualified than himself. 

Lips pressed together tightly in determination, Peter digs into the program logs. It is pinpointed there where exactly the transformation went wrong: the spider venom did not agree with an intruder. Figures this stuff would be aggressive; it turned Harry into the Goblin, after all. Maybe if Peter had the Goblin’s DNA sample… 

He imagines another sample piled into the program memory and feels a need to swear in a very filthy manner. There are too many components in the equation; he doesn’t have enough time, enough equipment, enough freaking brain capacity to juggle them all without dropping.

Calm down, Parker; you must do it, therefore you can.

First of all, the symbiote idea was bad. No need to complicate things unnecessarily. Second of all, getting a sample of the Goblin looks harder and harder the more Peter thinks about it; it’s not like the Goblin is going to bare his shoulder readily and sit still while some blood is being drawn if Peter asks nicely. He will also most likely decline Peter’s offer to trim his hair or nails. And if Peter manages to pin the Goblin down, who’s to say the Goblin won’t use the position to his own advantage? He could reach out and touch Peter and turn into Harry – and then the sampling would be pointless. 

Turn into Harry. Now that is an idea worth of careful looking into.

Guided by a wave of inspiration, Peter’s fingers fly over the keyboard like he is a crazed typist with a deadline to meet; the insides of the laptop groan and rumble trying to keep up with the tempo. The modeling program almost freezes up a couple of times, unable to catch up with his hectic demands; Peter feels like his blood is on fire, like the thoughts in his head bubble like champagne, and after so many hours of struggling the concept is finally here, clear, simple and elegant. 

Peter gazes upon the new formula with tender adoration, flushed, with his fingertips tingling, his mouth stretched into an involuntary wide smile. The program shows him a healthy human; the pending has been completed and nothing bad has happened. 

“It’s alive!” Peter shouts happily. “It's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!”

He laughs, flops onto the floor in a tight ball of arms and legs presses to the torso in a not-very-human-like fashion, rolls on, stops at the gene analyzer and types the formula into it. The analyzer comes to life with a low grinding sound, and Peter waits by it, his hands presses to the warm vibrating metal, as a portion of serum is synthesized. 

It’s transparent and it smells sharp and fresh. Peter puts a drop under the lens and hits a button; the analyzer works again, grumbling, and some half a minute later displays the results on the small screen. Peter reads the words interspersed with numbers, green on black, greedily, the way he’d breathe after having spent too much time underwater. 

“It worked. It really worked,” Peter whispers. “They said I was mad, but it worked!”

He laughs again; the laugh soon turns into giggling and snickering and later on dies down completely. Peter’s brain is very much awake, his thoughts are frantic, hyped; his body, on the other hand, feels heavy and tired. His throat is dry, and his back is a little stiff. If he is really attentive, he can even feel hunger distantly gnawing at his guts.

Peter collects the serum into a tube and takes it with him to the house. Aunt May must be already sleeping but he still takes care to slink into the kitchen as quietly as possible. He drinks a glass of cold milk and then rinses it; he lost the delicious carefree habit of drinking straight from the bottle when he got the spider powers because Aunt May drinking her morning coffee with some genetically altered spit in it could lead to horrifyingly gross consequences and Peter really wouldn’t want that. By the time the glass is clean, Peter feels even more tired.

He heads straight to bed, clutching the tube with the serum in one hand; he places it on the nightstand, making sure it’s far enough from the alarm clock. He has already smashed many an alarm clock when woken up in the morning; better to be safe than sorry.

The serum placed safely nearby, his teeth cleaned, his pajamas on, Peter lets himself lie down and relax. 

That feels so good.

It would feel even better if he actually fell asleep, though, after having counted three hundred sheep jumping and bleating, but, of course, one can’t have everything. Peter’s mind is still racing, and he can’t stop making far-fetched grand plans on how he will cure Harry. Harry will be able to be himself then. No fear of painful premature death, no monsters shutting him away from the world in a far corner of his own brain; all the time in the world to do his hair, manage OsCorp, and what not. 

Peter smiles into the cozy familiar darkness of his bedroom. Now that the nerd-rush has subsided, satisfied with the results, he can’t stop thinking of Harry. A healthy, happy Harry. 

Maybe then Peter will be able to kiss him in privacy, without a care in the world. And then maybe something more.

There’s sweet, demanding heavy feeling pooling in his lower abdomen. Peter lies very still; he can hear his own heart beating – faster, faster as he thinks of the way Harry’s lips felt on his own, the almost unbearable friction when he and Harry were only separated by the thin layer of Spider-Man suit. It’s been a long time since Peter touched himself; the only girl he ever really wanted to think about being dead because of him certainly turned him away from these things. But now he has hope; he has the memory of Harry’s trembling fingers caressing his hair, the memory of the way he smells and moves and laughs, everything that is Harry, and the mental image of him is so perfect that Peter closes his eyes and lets his hand snake under the waistband of the pajamas pants.

He starts out slow, feeling the blood rush into his already half-hard cock. Soon he is rock hard but he still keeps his pace rather leisurely, building the pressure until he can no longer bear the torture of waiting and then some more because it sounds like something Harry would do if he was here with Peter. It would be Harry’s hand, teasing him with ghostly touches over the head, rolling the balls in the palm and squeezing them ever so slightly in order to make Peter moan through gritted teeth and writhe under possessive kisses with a moderate amount of biting which only serves to fuel Peter’s need.

Harry would prepare himself for Peter because Harry is a control freak like that, has always been one; he’d let Peter watch how he puts one lubed finger inside his tight ass, then two and three, dragging it out more for the pleasure of seeing Peter transfixed and aroused nearly to the point of tears than for actual stretching. Harry would love to be on top, riding Peter with the speed and the force he chose, and the idea makes Peter whimper helplessly as his hand starts moving quicker. As much as it is fun to stave off the climax so that it will be one to remember, Peter can’t take much more of that; he’s eighteen, he has had a hell of a week, and he is hopelessly, utterly in love with his best friend who is currently a bloodthirsty greenish monster. He pumps his cock hard and fast, arching into the movements of his fist, and there it is, the blissful release shooting through him, all the way from head to toes, sharp and all-encompassing like an electrical current. 

“Wow,” Peter exhales while the pleasant buzz dies down.

He strokes himself lazily and gently through the aftershocks, shivering and twitching from the almost painful sensation of fingers on the sensitive skin. His eyelids are leaden by the time he can let go and relax, and he doesn’t find it in himself to care enough to get up and wash the sperm off his body and sheets.

He sleeps.


	8. Chapter 8

A stray ray of sunshine slashes over Peter’s eyes, hot and blunt; it’s an effective wake up call, ever since Peter turned into, well, Spider-Man. He totally forgot to draw the curtains close last night so this morning he is wide awake with the sunrise, soaking the warmth with his face and neck.

It’s not as comfortable a morning as he’d like it to be, though. The dried cum has glued him to the blankets, and if he rips it off, he’ll be a chunk of pubic hair short. Ouch. He can, of course, bundle the blanket and carry it to the bathroom where, with the help of water and soap it’ll be easier to pry the fabric off. Also, he will need to wash it off anyway, as well as think of a plausible excuse for Aunt May whose disapproval for him doing his own laundry still stands.

Peter can bet nobody ever imagines something like that happening in the life of a superhero. Well, maybe J. Jonah Jameson would be capable of imagining all sorts of embarrassing and humiliating stuff happening to Spider-Man – but no-no-no, that’s where Peter draws a line, he is fairly sure that a life without thinking of Jameson thinking about Peter masturbating and getting all messy in the process would be a happy one.

Duh, that is disturbing on so many levels.

One shower and one load of laundry later, he slides over the railing of the stairs down to the kitchen, mindful of the precious tube in his pocket. Aunt May isn’t here but Peter can hear her moving around in the living-room and picking things up. The rustle of a tartan blanket being carefully folded is muffled by the sound of the cereal that Peter is pouring into a bowl, and all around, even taking into consideration the earlier unfortunate incident of intimate nature, he is in a great mood. As long as he doesn’t start thinking of the endless messes he is yet to clean up. 

There are three firm knocks on the door; Aunt May walks to the hallway.

“Hello there, young man,” Peter hears her saying. “Can I help you with anything? Unless you’re selling something, in which case I certainly can’t.”

The visitor laughs, and something in this sound strikes Peter as odd; his spidey sense tingles, sending distress signals all the way down his spine.

“Good morning, ma’am! And I’m not really selling anything, do they even still do door-to-door sales? I thought it was all online now.”

Peter knows this voice; he has heard it a few times by now, and a couple of those times were under circumstances he is unlikely to forget in foreseeable future. He also knows all too well the little hissing lilt, unnoticeable to anyone without enhanced superhero hearing, which makes the smooth and even English words subtly _alien_.

Both Venom and the Goblin have been oddly quiet since their last encounter at Roosevelt. And peace and quiet always ends in blazing disaster, doesn’t it?

He drops the milk bottle in his haste to get out of the kitchen; it hits the floor with a quiet thud when Peter is already in the hallway. He stops abruptly, his conclusions confirmed, and Eddie Brock grins at him over Aunt May’s shoulder.

Peter never actually thought of how small and fragile Aunt May looks next to a super-villain. He has a comprehensive picture of that in his mind now, and it chills him to the bone.

“Hey there, buddy,” Eddie says lightly. “Sorry to drop in so early but there’s something we’ve got to talk about.”

Eddie – Venom – looks at ease as if he’s come to discuss plans for a surprise birthday party or something. Peter’s throat feels very dry in a highly unpleasant way.

“Sure,” he says calmly. “Aunt May, I think I spilt some milk in the kitchen and I’d mop it up but Eddie and I really need to talk..? Please?”

A sincerely sounding ‘please’ works like a charm on Aunt May. She disappears into the kitchen, not a single sign of suspicion, and grumbles from there about how Peter is always all thumbs in the morning and how dropping an open full bottle is not exactly ‘spilling some milk’. Peter ignores that for the time being, concentrating on Eddie.

It’s weird but when Peter listens really hard he can hear that Eddie’s heart, while steady and slow, makes a sort of double beat every once in a while. He never heard that when he was – wearing, for the lack of a better word – Venom.

Maybe he didn’t want to hear that.

“We could have killed her in an instant, with you in the next room and unable to do anything,” Eddie whispers, looking Peter in the eye without blinking, and can a normal human even do that? Also, Peter doesn’t remember but he is willing to bet quite a lot that Eddie’s eyes didn’t use to be so black that it is impossible to spot his pupils.

“You lay one finger on her…” Peter clenches his fists; and together with the white-hot anger a wave of icy fear washes him over because if Venom wanted to actually kill Aunt May, he wouldn’t be having pointless conversations with her about door-to-door sale practices. There must be something else, something really bad that Venom wants.

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” Venom leers at him. “Not yet, anyway. We are far too busy with one hostage already.”

“Who is it?” _please please don’t let it be –_

“Your little treacherous green friend,” Venom informs him cheerfully. “He is quite a handful but it is certainly worth it. You will do anything to save your fuckbuddy, won’t you, Spider-Man?”

It feels a bit like the air has run out and the floor has started wobbling under Peter’s feet.

“What did you do to him?”

“Come over to our party and you will find out,” Venom says.

“Where is it?” Peter hisses; his heart is racing, and he is nauseous from fear and fury.

He blinks involuntarily; a reflex, a movement that his eyes have been performing, ever since he was born, with inherent ease; when he opens them again after only a fraction of a second, Venom is gone.

“Peter!” Aunt May calls from the kitchen. “Come have some breakfast with me and your friend!”

Peter shoots a web towards where an almost imperceptible trace of black sludge has gotten stuck to the roof of the house next door, and then he is gone, too.

He wouldn’t be able to stomach a breakfast right now if he wanted to anyway.

* * *

He gets rid of the everyday clothes while on the move. Venom’s trail is not there more often than not but Peter is frantic and almost blind with crippling worry anyway. He tears off his hoodie and his shirt, kicks off the shoes, glues the tube to his fingers and shimmies out of his pants; the revealed Spider-Man suit is deep, saturated red and blue in the morning sun, like clotting blood and storming sea. Peter feels with his whole body where Venom must have gone; he knows it before he spots another black stain that has most probably been left out here for him on purpose like a particularly gross reinterpretation of a breadcrumb trail.

The morning noises get quieter and quieter as he swings like a madman. The car honking is distant now, and the incessant murmur of people discussing a million things on their phones is not there anymore. This part of the city is the ugly part, the side of the face where a sprinkle of bright ripe pimples has popped up; the side which one doesn’t turn to those whom one wants to impress. There is a construction site with a half-finished building with beams sticking out from walls beaten by the winds and time, and from the height Peter spots a group of homeless people gathered around a fire lit in an old trashcan. The sea beats the crude embankment with ever-stubborn tide, coming in and ebbing away, leaving an uneven line of trash behind every time. It’s silent, so silent that the only sounds Peter can make out are his own ragged breathing and the crackling of the trash can fire. 

And then there is smidgen of black on the wall of a has-been shed that stands apart; the black pulses and trembles like a living creature that it is and Peter bounces off where he had stopped and flies towards it.

Venom is inside, waiting for him in all the ugly black glory, with a deformed white spider on its chest. It is bizarre how, even though it has now bonded with Eddie, it still keeps what it has gained from Peter – the form, the mannerisms, the abilities and skills. Perhaps Eddie couldn’t offer anything better than Spider-Man; wielding a camera or doing homework must not be exactly the wet dream of every evil alien puddle of goo.

“Here I am, and there’s no party to crash,” Peter comments, hanging upside down in the corner. His lips move almost automatically while he scans the room.

Harry – the Goblin – both of them – is here, webbed to the wall, covered in blood and bruises. His hair is scorched by what must have been a bomb going off not where it was intended to; a ball gag of Venom is in his mouth, stretching the lips to their extreme. 

“We could not start without you, now could we?” Venom says, its voice made up of a chorus of a thousand tiny voices with a penchant for sibilants.

Peter jumps just in time to let two thick black tentacles rush past him and grab an empty space. 

“Kinky much, are you?” he yells and webs the next pair together. He manages to gain some leverage with that but not enough; Venom breaks them before Peter can toss him into the wall.

“You will never match us,” Venom snarls. It crawls along the wall towards Peter with precise efficiency, mimicking his own movements like a mirror. “We are stronger than you and we want revenge!”

Peter kicks Venom in the snout and uses the momentary shock to latch onto Mr. Symbiote Brock’s body and throws himself forward to the Goblin. He is closer to the latter than to Venom right now, and the Goblin’s restraints lash out at him, trying to keep him at bay.

They are weak and slow without a proper host to attach themselves to and Peter rips a couple of them off before a forceful blow sends him sprawling on the floor several meters away. Peter’s lips hurt where they crashed into the floor and the blood leaves a metallic taste in his mouth; his back aches sharply between his shoulder blades where Venom hit him. Peter scrambles to all fours and flips over, avoiding another blow. 

He sends a mushroom-shaped line of webbing to the Goblin. The restraints immediately cover it with hostile tendrils but they can’t really deal with the Patented Peter Parker Webbing Formula of Sheer Awesomeness (well, it’s not really patented but the word gives the whole phrase a nice ring), and Venom comes to help them. With a growl it pulls on the webbing with all it might.

No one acts smart when they are angry.

The webbing doesn’t come off – the Goblin comes off the wall instead, dropping to the floor in a heap of tangled white and black webs. He tries to get himself free but he is obviously too weak, the strength undermined greatly by what must have been an epic super-villain battle. His back is naked – his armor just ripped off there, and he bleeds profusely from dozens of cuts, some of them left by the wall and some of them probably received earlier; the sight of it sobers Peter up immediately, kicking the soaring adrenaline high down a few notches. The tube which he has webbed to his side starts almost literally burning him through the suit.

“You’re sloppy today! Come on, do something before I have to take my phone and play some Angry Birds just not to die of boredom!” Peter taunts. Venom is fast but Peter is faster, dancing through the chaotic mess of tentacles unhealthily bent on catching him. He leans and jumps and slides and spins, his body in perfect sync with his mind; he can see the Goblin lying on chipped tiles, his fingers tugging helplessly at the has-been restraints which have all slithered up to his neck now and are strangling him. Peter sees the Goblin trying and inhale and failing, thrashing against the deadly hold on his throat, and knows that Harry is inside that twisting, agonizing body, dying together with the Goblin. The time seems to stop completely as Peter leaps in a whirl of limbs, brushing the tentacles, and steps on Venom’s head to make a jump.

He lands in a tight ball and rolls, allowing the inertia help him along the way. He is by Harry’s side very soon, so soon that he is startled by that; he doesn’t waste time marveling at the strangeness of perception under extreme duress and tears the tentacles off of the Goblin’s throat. There is a red welt across the soft skin, swelling as Peter watches, transfixed.

It feels like it has been going on for a while but it couldn’t have been more than a second. Spidey sense gives Peter a full-body shiver and he scoops the now unconscious Goblin up and gets the hell out of the way of a huge chunk of the wall whooshing past. A few pieces of rubble land on the Goblin’s face and he grimaces painfully without waking up.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Peter shouts. Two can play this game.

One hand full of limp Goblin, he picks up a brick with his free one and throws it with all the accuracy he can master; and another one, before the first one even reaches its destination, and another, and another.

He can’t work as fast as, say, an automatic gun but it’s damn sure not for the lack of trying.

Venom bats most bricks away but it misses some of them; also, the dust that is clouding the air (whoever told Venom that using ancient construction materials as weapons is a good idea? Peter is ready to kiss this person) gets into the symbiote’s eyes and mouth and it snarls and hisses, trying to clear the suddenly blurred world view. Peter slides under a desk, careful not to hit the Goblin, lifts it with one hand from underneath and hurls it towards half-blind Venom.

It collapses under the impact (it is only now that Peter fully grasps what Aunt May’s favorite ‘they just don’t make these things like they used to’ means, even though she might not be aware of this specific shade of meaning). Peter spends a few rather embarrassing moments trying to take at least one glove off with only one hand free. When it’s finally done – _phew_ – Peter presses his hand tentatively to the Goblin’s sallow cheek. What if it won’t work? What if he was wrong in his calculations? What if he is too late? 

Before Peter’s anxiety has a chance to grow into a fully-fledged panic attack, the Goblin’s face starts changing. Peter watches, with his heart skipping beats as the skin goes smoother and loses the greenish tint, the hair becomes soft again, and the teeth in the slightly open mouth lighten and turn neatly even. Harry’s eyelids flutter and Peter smiles at him weakly, feeling totally unexpected tears boiling somewhere inside his skull.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he says and he means it, the contrast between the Goblin and Harry is striking, breathtaking, Harry is as stunning as the Goblin is ugly.

Harry blinks.

“As nice as your ass looks in spandex, are you absolutely sure that now is the right time to be flirting with me?” he asks.

“You can’t see my ass from where you are,” Peter points out.

“I’ve seen it before,” Harry smirks, and there’s a spark of the guy he used to be before this whole mess; it’s gone as quickly as it came, though.

Venom stirs behind them, and Peter knows they don’t have much time.

“Brace yourself,” he says, keeping one hand on Harry’s face and reaching for the tube with the second.

“Why?” Harry asks suspiciously. Peter would love to explain but it is seriously not the right time for science talk; that’s why he pushes the needle at the end of the tube into Harry’s still hurt neck, where the blood runs just under the skin, in one curt movement and doesn’t offer any further explanation.

It’s not like Harry still needs it anyway. His eyes – so blue, so fervently hopeful – open wide in understanding. And then he arcs, lips twisted as if for a scream but nothing comes out but a choked groan, and Peter aches to ease it somehow, to lessen the pain but the only thing he can do is hold Harry down and never ever in a million years stop touching him.

That’s the main part of his plan. The DNA of the spider venom is too powerful, too vicious; as short of time for proper research as he was, Peter could not find a way to hold it in check. But when Harry responds to Peter’s touch, that DNA must go to the background, fuming and bitter about being pushed out of the spotlight, and it’s the window of opportunity that Peter counts on, the time for Harry to heal while not being overpowered by the Goblin.

He doesn’t want to imagine what would happen if he let go while the transformation is not complete. 

There’s rustling and growling from behind and Peter curses Venom for its alien powers of withstanding his blows.

Venom charges at them, all innumerable shark-like teeth bared, and there’s not enough time to let Harry heal properly. Peter webs his hand to Harry’s cheek and, satisfied by the temporary stability it should provide, props himself up on the other hand in order to kick hard into Venom’s stomach. It’s like kicking an anvil, and Peter bites back an instinctive cry of pain, hoping that no fragile small bone in his feet is broken. Venom is thrown a few steps back but doesn’t look really bothered. Peter plunges into the tiny opportunity that he has shooting a web to the far wall and wrapping his legs around Harry’s waist before jumping.

It’s damn uncomfortable with Harry trembling and unhelpful and hanging like a dead weight between Peter’s slippery spandex knees; Peter feels the muscles in his back and the web-wielding arm strain to their limits. He knows he can do it, though.

There is an actual reason why he calls himself a superhero even when no one else does.

Venom swings after them, feral and roaring like it’s so angry that it’s lost the ability to talk. Peter’s limbs are all occupied so he chooses to try to beat Venom in agility and speed, avoiding the blows and sliding past grabby tentacles. It would be hard on an average day with Venom’s alien capabilities, but with hands and feet full of Harry Peter is slower and clumsier than he used to be before the spider bite.

The first few minutes – very long minutes, if you ask Peter – are won through stubborn desperation. It’s not enough to beat Venom entirely, not by a long shot.

A sneaky tentacle loops around Peter’s knee and jerks with truly inhuman force. Peter, startled, lets go of the ceiling and they fall, Peter trying to wedge himself between the now still and seemingly sleeping Harry and the floor.

Shit, it hurts, hurts-hurts-hurts. Peter whimpers once, blinking away an involuntary tear from the sharp blinding pain that has shot up from his shoulder blades and tailbone. He rolls, hugging Harry as closely as possible, and the floor tiles, shattered by the next Venom’s blow, rain over them. One rough piece lands directly on the tip of Harry’s nose, and Harry opens his eyes with a sharp intake of breath.

The eyes are blue as they have ever been. Harry looks tired and tense, his features sharp and his lips pressed into a thin line. There is no hint of green anywhere; he is just Harry as far as Peter can see and feel, and his senses are at their keenest right now. 

“The fuck?” Harry asks, his voice too strung with hope and fear for the obscenity.

“Stay away from the fight,” Peter says and, with his heart rolling up to his throat, rips the webbed hand off Harry’s cheek.

Harry yelps at the sudden sensation; Peter shoves him unceremoniously to the side and takes the brunt of Venom’s next blow. Sweet Jesus, with the beating his shoulder blades have taken today he’ll be sleeping on his belly for the next week.

“That’s one hell of a surprise waxing, give a guy a little warning next time, will you?” Harry mutters, scrambling further into the corner. The automatic sass in spite of not really understanding what’s going on and probably feeling like a puddle of puke would make Peter smile if not for the fact that Venom is attacking again, brutally fast and merciless. It seems like the symbiote has banished the idea of getting back at Peter for all the grief caused by the latter and just settled on killing him.

It’s fine by Peter. Nothing new for him here.

He needs to figure out now how to take Venom down without hurting Eddie Brock. It’s a tough one since Venom conveniently chose a place without a single church in twenty-five mile radius. There isn’t a single piece of tech that could vibrate, not even anything metal that would give off the desired sound when hit; and Peter has no idea how else he can weaken Venom enough to wrench him off Eddie. Maybe there are ways to destroy the symbiote once and for all but they will all likely destroy Eddie as well.

Peter fights, keeping an eye on Harry who is rubbing his neck with absolute concentration and an expression of strong anxiety on his face; no signs of turning into the Goblin so far. There is no time to tell Harry to get the heck away from here (since the moron doesn’t feel the need to do so without prompting) and it could draw Venom’s attention to Harry which is pretty much the last thing Peter wants to happen. 

There’s only one thing to do at this point, and Peter resorts to it even though it is highly un-superhero-like and generally demeaning and stuff. He can bet his webshooters that Captain America never had to stoop to such undignified methods.

He inhales deeply until his lungs are full to the point of aching and starts shrieking in a voice so high-pitched that a spoilt primary school student would envy him. The sound is impossibly loud and shrill; he makes sure that his uvula trembles constantly under the onslaught of the air being released.

Venom crouches low on the floor; its layers peel off, flinching every time Peter puts some more feeling into his performance, and there is a puddle of it beneath Eddie’s trainers-clad feet. It’s holding its head with both hands, trying to catch parts of itself and slap them back but even if such tactics could actually work, there’s no energy to back the movement up. Shriek, Wail, and Howl: Your New Best Friends. Peter will totally write a book about basic self-defense against super-villains, if only to include a chapter with this name.

However, there’s only so much monotonous screaming that he can do, limited by his lung capacity. He has to stop to inhale again, and Venom immediately begins assembling back. Peter rushes to resume screaming and scrambles over to Venom to tear it off Eddie. Surprisingly enough, while the symbiote is mostly out cold from the noise, Eddie resists Peter’s attempts at saving him; as a human, he is merely irritated by the sound, and he also knows where to punch to make Peter shut up.

Maybe Peter should upgrade his suit with a Kevlar disc protecting his solar plexus. He wishes he’d thought of that sooner (even if he has no legal access to Kevlar supplies whatsoever and can’t earn nearly enough to try and buy some illegally) when he’s down, his mouth open in a silent sincere scream of pain, his throat raw, blood and bile mixing on his tongue. From where he’s lying he can see Venom running up Eddie in currents and he hears Eddie laugh maniacally. 

When this is over, he has to recommend the guy to go find a therapist or at least get some Prozac for those issues. Seriously.

As far as Peter is concerned, it is now a race. Who will gather their bearings quicker – he or the Venom-Eddie team? And, according to his calculations, the odds are not in his favor. “Shit,” Peter thinks when he’s nowhere near ready to get up and fight but Venom has almost completely covered Eddie’s body again.

Suddenly, there’s a ‘thwack’ followed at once by deafening shrieking, even more obnoxious than Peter’s. Eddie’s eyes roll up from the blow that rendered him pretty much unconscious, and he falls on his knees, no longer supported by the trembling and hissing symbiote. Peter lifts his head and sees Harry with a board that used to be a part of that old desk in his hands; Harry is screaming at the top of his lungs, looking bored as if he’s doing homework.

It’s a chance that Peter cannot afford to waste. He tears the symbiote off the dazed Eddie and wraps it in multiple layers of webbing, until he is completely sure that not even a single hair-thin thread of evil goo can get out. Harry stops screaming when Peter is done, and it is so quiet all of a sudden that Peter’s ears start ringing a bit.

“Not. A. Word,” Harry croaks finally. “To anyone. Ever.”

“Who would I tell about it anyway?” Peter webs Eddie’s hands together and wonders what he should do now. While he himself can extend the courtesy of silence, who can guarantee that Eddie won’t run to the Daily Bugle first thing in the morning in order to gleefully blow Peter’s identity?

Oh, hell. Clean-ups are always so much more complicated than making a mess in the first place.

“Although,” he says, pretending to be mulling over the thought, “now that you mention it, you going ultrasound is golden blackmail material…”

“Do I hear the pot calling the kettle black, here?” Harry looks annoyed but not so much so as to clobber Peter with that board too. Peter grins at him unabashedly, and Harry makes a facepalm in return.

* * *

In the end Eddie, together with the huge lump on his nape, is handed over to the police without any additional explanations. Peter hopes that Eddie will be smart enough to keep his mouth shut since A) he has zero tangible proof, B) he has a few secrets he’d prefer Peter to stay silent about. 

The last thing he does this evening is bringing Harry home. Harry is uncharacteristically silent and withdrawn during the swinging, and Peter doesn’t bother him, even though he is secretly disappointed by the lack of appreciation from Harry about, you know, practically flying. He reckons, after a glider other ways of aerial transportation are just not as impressive.

He sets Harry carefully on the roof of the OsCorp tower and stands in front of him awkwardly, not knowing what to do, and Harry does not volunteer with any ice-breakers. As seconds crawl by, Peter grows more and more flustered and uncomfortable in the unbearable silence, and it’s the confused desperation that makes him pull up the mask, step towards Harry, and gently kiss him on the lips.

Harry reacts with a small surprised gasp but then mellows into the touch, his mouth moving against Peter’s in response; the kiss is slow and uncertain, bitter and salty and full of gritty particles left over from the fight. (What? Fighting is unsanitary)

Then Harry pushes Peter away with both hands, breaking the kiss.

“Have you forgotten I don’t do complicated?” Harry asks. His lips are bright, and if Peter puts some effort into his already keen vision, he’ll see the beat of the tiny streams of blood quickly flowing in abundance just under that thin, smooth skin.

“I…” Peter blinks. “I haven’t but…”

“No buts,” Harry interrupts. “I still don’t, and everything about you is so complicated that my head hurts. Too… too complicated. Too much.”

“But don’t you want it too?” Peter asks, and god, is he pathetic right now, but being pathetic and pleading is better than letting the idea of Harry banishing him sink in. 

At some point in the past, Peter is sure, he meant as much for Harry as Harry means to him now; back when they were kids Harry was already bad at showing affection but he managed it well enough for Peter. And when they met again – it seems like a few years have passed since, really – Harry seemed happy to see him. And now, when everything is finally is as alright as it’s ever going to be, Harry pushes him away.

Some part of Peter screams. He tries not to listen to it.

“Nope,” Harry says. 

And Peter leaves, because there aren’t many ways to interpret a ‘nope.’ Harry doesn’t stop him.


	9. Chapter 9

Interlude IV

Funny how people usually take for granted only having themselves in their heads. Most folks from the crowd surrounding Harry don’t know what it’s like to have a demented brainmate and they likely never will. 

Everything feels new to Harry. The Goblin is gone and the Osborn curse has been lifted; he finally has a chance to just, you know, live. No need to try and down everything life can offer in one sitting; instead of partying with supermodels until five a.m. Harry walks to the nearest Starbucks for a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie in broad daylight. Mundane things don’t have any right to feel so refreshing but they do, and he lets them have their way. 

He sits down on a bench by the Hudson and sips his coffee. The wind from the river is chilly and smells faintly of sickening sweetness like something rotten. Well, what else do you expect after years and years of dumping all sorts of trash into these very waters? Harry enjoys it nonetheless, however perverted the idea is. He missed all things New-York while he was abroad and he hasn’t exactly had much time to catch up with fond childhood memories since he returned. He has it now.

The first few days he spent waiting for the next major Harry-related fuck-up to show itself. Come on, it’s him we’re talking about. A few spider legs are bound to spring out of the back of his neck; the Goblin’s awful hairstyle is sure to stick with him forever despite his every effort; the disease is practically obligated to make a triumphant comeback when he least expects it to.

Nothing bad happens to him, though, no matter how anxiously he waits for it, tossing and turning restlessly at night. So much wasted opportunity for a good beauty rest, and nothing to show for it. No extra eyes on his forehead, no craving dead flies, no internal organs trying to tie into a knot and go bad like last month’s milk, no wish to go out and conquer the world, killing as many people in the process as he possibly can. Nihil. Nada. 

In a weird and twisted way, he is disappointed. However, it’s the one mistake he is glad to have made.

This is not to say that all that injecting with experimental genome-altering serums hasn’t left any lasting effects on him at all. He doesn’t need to have super-vision to know when Spider-Man is watching him from rooftops and spires (which is rather often these days); it’s like Harry’s very guts are fine-tuned to his presence now and when Harry’s blood suddenly sings in his veins and he feels awake and alert without any reason he knows exactly why. He could make Peter freak out by letting him know that he’s been noticed; the thought is actually very alluring to Harry. He doesn’t do it, though. As averse to the idea as he is, Harry feels calmer and safer when he knows there is his personal hero-slash-nemesis right behind his shoulder.

(he spent many an hour feeling annoyed about it and googling ‘Stockholm syndrome’ and ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ because he can’t really let go of the Goblin business if he needs Spider-Man by his side in order to breathe completely freely and if anyone needs to just fucking move on already it is certainly Harry)

At times Harry wonders if this ceaseless watch affects Peter’s work and studies. 

(nothing from the Wikipedia fits and a renowned psychiatrist wasn’t much help either)

(nothing can ever simply fit with Peter)

(it’s so complicated)

(so)

(fucking)

(complicated)

It’s not dignified for an Osborn to use sappy clichés like ‘butterflies in the stomach’ to describe their feelings so Harry avoids it like fire. 

Harry takes a sip of his latte with mint syrup. It’s tepid now, not hot, but he enjoys it anyway.

He wonders what kind of coffee Peter likes; back in their childhood they both mostly drank milk and juice, and by now they’ve never had a chance to hit a coffee joint together. Is it black? Probably not; more like, Peter prefers those overcomplicated things with cones of whipped cream, a dozen of syrups, chocolate chips, scented marshmallows, diced strawberries, and also some sugar thrown in for good measure. Harry can imagine all too easily how Peter would lick a whipped cream mustache off his upper lip and laugh at Harry’s offer of a napkin.

He wonders why he wonders about that stupid coffee stuff. He’s decided to cut off the Spider-Man ties, right? No more supernatural shit jumping at him from every corner. And let’s not forget Peter refusing to give Harry his blood when Harry literally begged him; Harry’s not sure he is completely over that.

Something in Harry’s brain tingles and he knows without doubt that it’s Peter hanging on that skyscraper about fifty feet away and staring creepily at him. Well, it should be creepy. If he keeps it up, Harry might just have to hire someone to snap a picture of it and send it to the Daily Bugle along with a suggestion of a headline like ‘Hide Your Children, Grab Your Ammo: Spider-Man Stalking Innocent Citizens’. 

Harry finishes his coffee in a few big swigs, dumps the empty paper cup into a nearby trash can, and leaves. 

He can feel that Peter follows him, keeping a respectful distance but never losing Harry’s sight.

* * *

It’s not stalking if you only do it to protect someone. That’s the new mantra; totally cooler than that ‘Ohmmm’ stuff. 

Apparently, watching from the roofs of buildings over people who he loves but can’t be with (and, if you ask him, this list is too damn long already) is what Peter does these days. It’s a thing with him. Love followed by rejection followed by some Spider-stalking. 

Admittedly, being a stalker-superhero clashes with being a student and a nephew even worse than just a superhero business. Peter doesn’t get nearly as much sleep as he used to because after a day on Harry’s heels he has to work on the project about which MJ is very insistent and make up more and more excuses for Aunt May. That last one is the most exhausting of all, so at some point he stops trying and simply says he was with Harry. It’s sort of true, after all. Aunt May gives him an unnerving knowing smile every time but doesn’t pressure him for details.

Until now, that is.

“Peter,” she says. “Why do you never invite Harry to our place?”

Well, so much for the truth. Peter can’t in his right mind tell her that Harry doesn’t want anything to do with him, now can he? And wow, does that thought sting.

Peter pushes it to the outskirts of his mind and shrugs nonchalantly.

“His place is nice. It’s huge and we can stuff ourselves with pizza while playing video games. I bet you’d like to feed us broccoli until we burst, wouldn’t you, Aunt May?”

Again, it’s not an outright lie. Theoretically speaking, Harry and he could do that. If, you know, just about everything in their lives was currently different.

“You’ll remember that broccoli when you have an ulcer by twenty-five from all that junk,” Aunt May chides; she is not, however, easily sidetracked. “You seem to be spending all your time with Harry now. Don’t I get to meet him, at least?”

There’s a strange unfamiliar undertone to her voice, as if she’s speaking about something more than simply making sure that Peter and Harry eat healthily while killing pixels. No, no, she can’t possibly be onto the whole Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin debacle, can she? Peter meets her inquisitive look, hunching his shoulders defensively.

“He’s busy,” Peter says. “A corporation to run, and all that. But I’ll ask him and tell him you said hello.”

Great, next time he comes home late, having made sure that Harry is safely watching a movie in his living-room or reading some business-related papers in his study, he’ll have to look his most convincing and tell her that Harry is happy about the invitation but must take a raincheck due to being otherwise occupied. Exactly what he needs at the end of the day.

There’s an urge to check if all this bitter sarcasm is flowing out of his ears or any other orifices but Peter resists it. He’s a superhero, he can bullshit his way through this one.

“Peter,” Aunt May says carefully. “There’s no need to hide Harry from me, you know that, right?”

Huh?

“I’m not hiding him from anyone,” he argues. “Harry is his own person, he decides for himself where he wants or doesn’t want to go.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Aunt May agrees readily. “However, he’d make a concession if somebody he deeply cared about asked him.”

Peter is totally lost. He starts to suspect that he and Aunt May have been participating in two very different conversations.

“What are you talking about?” he asks directly.

Aunt May sighs and shakes her head.

“When you are ready, bring him over, okay? I’m not pressuring you into anything, don’t worry,” she smiles but there’s no actual mirth in that smile, like she’s deeply worried for him behind the cheery face.

“Sure,” Peter says uncertainly. It appears to be the right thing to say because Aunt May smiles at him again, with some relief this time, kisses him on the forehead, and leaves for bed.

“What the heck just happened?” Peter wonders out loud. The empty kitchen, of course, doesn’t respond.

He climbs upstairs to his room, gives a sour look to his project notes, and fishes his suit out of the underwear drawer. A quick patrol and maybe a few apprehended petty criminals will do him good.

* * *

It’s a quiet night. Peter prevents a couple of robberies and stops once to admonish a guy with a hot dog stand who is selling his sausages long past their expiration date; even if his clients are none the wiser, Peter can smell the rot hidden under grease and mustard from the top of a neighboring skyscraper. 

He ends up at the OsCorp tower anyway. He is drawn to it inevitably, even though he left it not so long ago, and nothing is likely to have changed by now. Harry is still watching “The Lord of The Rings”, his bare feet tucked under him, his hair ruffled in every which way, and a bulky bottle of lemon-scented soda perched precariously against the sofa cushions next to him. 

Peter watches him through the window and it’s not creepy at all except where it totally is. The sounds of an on-screen battle are muffled by the glass. Harry watches it unfold intently, barely blinking, and takes a sip of soda from time to time; he devotes so much care and precision to opening and closing the bottle and putting it back where it was and his sips are so small that one might suspect Harry of simply looking for something to do with his hands rather than being thirsty. 

Peter really should go now. He is definitely in trouble if Aunt May decides she wants to say goodnight to him, and Harry doesn’t look inclined to go anywhere dangerous tonight, even if he seems strangely wound up.

Unexpectedly, Harry presses the ‘mute’ button on the remote and turns to stare at the window. Peter is quick to hide just like he did that night when he refused to give Harry his blood. Still and tense, Peter listens to the room. In the silence he easily makes out the rustling of the leather upholstery of the sofa and the padding of feet against the floorboards. Peter’s heart is pounding in his chest, heavy and nervous, as Harry approaches the window, opens it, and sticks his head out, turning to Peter with preternatural certainty.

“Uh… hi?” Peter offers. He swallows and he knows Harry can see it under the traitorously tight spandex.

Harry sighs. In the bright artificial light of New-York he looks very young.

“Are you ever going to stop following me?”

It’s not like it could go any worse than the way it is already going, Peter decides and plunges headfirst into honesty.

“Not if I can help it.”

Harry doesn’t respond to that.

“Do you really want me to stop?” Peter asks.

“If I did, it would be so much more convenient,” Harry mutters, pulls back to the room, and turns on his heels. “Come in. I think it’s gonna rain soon, and wet spiders are eerily disgusting.”

Slightly baffled, Peter swings into the room. Harry walks in front of him and plops onto the sofa without checking if Peter is doing the same.

“Take off your mask,” Harry says.

“Is that why you invited me in?” Peter asks, doing as he was asked. “You already know who’s behind it, what’s the point?”

“I wanted to see your stupid face, that’s all.” Harry shrugs. 

Peter sits down next to him gingerly.

“I’ll leave you alone if you want me to,” he says quietly. “I just… I was worried about you. After all that.”

“Yeah, I was worried about me too,” Harry’s lips twitch into a hint of a smile. “I’m fine, though. No goblins.”

“And your disease?”

Harry smiles again, this time widely and happily; Peter isn’t sure Harry’s even aware of doing it.

“Gone, if you believe the doctors and about a bazillion tests they performed on me. The way they draw blood from you, you’d think they are vampires stocking up on snacks for Christmas or something.”

“I’m glad for you,” Peter says sincerely.

“I wouldn’t be here now, watching the epic romance that are Frodo and Sam, if it wasn’t for you,” Harry says, and it sounds almost pleading but Peter has no idea what Harry might be possibly needing so bad.

“It’s nothing,” Peter shuffles awkwardly. 

“So my life and well-being are nothing to you, Parker?” Harry asks in mock outrage, and Peter snorts. “I am hurt here, positively wounded.”

“Harry,” Peter says, trying to stay serious. “What is it that you want?”

Harry never does something just for the heck of it. He calculates the outcomes and goes for the one he wants. Peter loves him for it as well as for a thousand other things; loves so much that his throat constricts.

Harry shifts on the sofa, moving closer to Peter. Peter watches, confused, as Harry lifts his hand and lets his fingers trail lightly up Peter’s arm, rub a few soothing circles into a knot in his shoulder, cup Peter’s cheek, and caress the corner of Peter’s mouth. The gesture is so suddenly intimate, so tender that Peter’s blood bubbles like champagne under the touch, and he is filled with strong, heady lust from head to toe.

It’s probably dangerous to invite inside masked superheroes loitering by your windows and then look at them with heavy-lidded eyes, the pupils huge and dark, and touch them like you mean it. Peter is definitely including it in his future book.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, and oh boy, is he proud of his voice still being steady. “Just a few days ago someone who is now in this room said he didn’t do complicated, and I know it wasn’t me. I’m getting all sorts of mixed signals here.”

Harry blinks slowly and there’s a shade of disappointment on his face as if he’d hoped, despite his best judgment, that Peter wouldn’t bring it up. 

“Look, I… I can feel you following me around, you know? You can hide all you want, and I can’t see you or hear you or smell you but I just know you’re there when you are.”

That is an unexpected piece of news.

“Oooooookay,” Peter says, drawing the word out, stalling for time to gather his thoughts together. “And you never said anything and never let me know I wasn’t welcome to, you know, stalk you everywhere, because...?”

“Because I was busy convincing myself that you weren’t and never succeeded,” Harry answers irritably and immediately looks embarrassed. “Look, I changed my mind. I’ve had time to think and I really, really wanted to get on with my life like a normal person but I can’t. And not because I can’t do that, like, physically, but because I really, really can’t.”

“You stopped making sense a couple of sentences ago,” Peter says carefully; he shouldn’t fool himself into thinking that Harry is saying what he thinks he is saying, he simply mustn’t but he feels that crazy hope bloom in his chest at breakneck speed anyway.

“What I meant was I want to be with you, okay?” Harry makes a face that clearly says: ‘argh, feelings’. “When I told you ‘no’ back then I thought I’d make a clean break, shake off you and all the wonderful nightmares that you bring into my little organized life. I was a coward, okay? You can’t actually blame me for that, not that you aren’t allowed to if you want because I’ll listen to you if you do, that’s how much I want to be with you, you see? Oh fuck, will you kiss me already so I can shut up?”

It is a tempting offer. Pretty much the most tempting one Peter has ever received.

“Hold on right there,” he says. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind again? Like, when I kiss you and you’ll think it’s gross to be kissing a genetically-altered half-spider? Or when I show up late, bloody and wrung out – and when I say ‘wrung out’ I mean it, some villains do that to see how far they can stretch and twist me until my every bone breaks? I know,” he adds, seeing Harry’s face, “it’s not the pillow talk you’re probably used to. But it’s exactly what I’m talking about. You rejecting me once is one time more than I ever wanted to experience, so, you know… just checking with you. That we are on the same page and all that.”

“Just shut the hell up, will you?” Harry says and lunges at Peter, kissing him hard and dirty and all kinds of filthily delicious, and, well, Peter is only human. Even if he is half-spider.

He takes that as a yes and lets his hands snake under Harry’s t-shirt, hoping that in the morning they will still be on the same page. And that if they won’t, they will both still be willing to figure it out together.

* * *

“Don’t tell me that your ringtone is Lady Ga-Ga,” Harry groans, covering his ears with a pillow. “I might just have to rethink this whole being with you thing, you know.”

“You secretly love her,” Peter retorts smugly because Harry totally does, otherwise he wouldn’t have her songs on his iPad. What? Superhearing comes in handy in many ways.

He picks up his phone from where it ended on the floor last night and peeks lazily at the caller ID. Oh shit.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Aunt May says dryly when he picks up with a coy ‘hello?’ “You’re at Harry’s.”

“Bingo,” Peter says, smiling. “I – uh, I can bring him over for breakfast?”

Aunt May laughs and says: 

“See that you do.”

Harry watches him with sleepy eyes and yeah, it’s totally creepy to be watched like that. Except when it’s not.

“We’ve got a ton of broccoli to consume,” Peter says very seriously. “Let’s get up.”

And they do. Not right away, but they do.

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, folks, the story is over. Thanks to everyone who's been sticking with it and leaving comments and kudos, I really appreciate that! =)  
> There might be a sequel coming up soon (if I decide to post it in-progress) or not very soon (if I'll want to finish it first like this one); it's been brewing in my head for a while so one of these days I'm just gonna give up and write it down. So you might want to watch out for it or something, I'm just saying.  
> Anyway, thanks again, and bye!


End file.
